Staff Hero Designer

This position is listed on behalf of a partner company, who manages all applications and next steps. Our partner is looking for a Staff Hero Designer based in United States. This role leads the creative vision, design, and execution quality of one or more playable hero characters for an upcoming game project. You will own core combat, traversal, abilities, controls, camera, and other player-facing mechanics from early prototypes through final polish. The position combines hands-on technical implementation with creative leadership, iteration, and cross-disciplinary collaboration. You will work closely with Gameplay Programmers, Animators, VFX Artists, Character Artists, Mission Designers, Narrative, and other development partners. As a Staff-level designer, you will help establish standards, mentor other designers, and influence the quality and consistency of third-person player experiences. The role offers significant autonomy to solve design problems, champion new ideas, and continuously improve tools, processes, and gameplay systems. Success requires deep expertise in game feel, player clarity, technical design, and highly polished third-person gameplay. Accountabilities: - Hero character ownership: Lead the creative vision and primary design ownership for one or more playable characters, covering combat, movement, traversal, abilities, interactivity, progression, non-combat mechanics, allies, and game balance. - Hands-on gameplay implementation: Prototype, implement, tune, and iterate hero combat and non-combat gameplay using internal tools and scripting systems, with a strong focus on innovation, playability, clarity, and polish. - Creative leadership: Provide creative direction for development pods and collaborate with development leadership to establish milestones, priorities, feedback cycles, and execution plans.

- Cross-disciplinary collaboration: Partner closely with Gameplay Programming and Animation while collaborating with VFX, Character Art, Mission Design, Systems Design, UI/UX, Narrative, and other disciplines to create cohesive player experiences. - Gameplay integration: Work with Mission and Combat Designers to integrate player mechanics into missions, encounters, and core combat systems. - Progression and systems: Collaborate with Systems Designers, Gameplay Programmers, and UI/UX partners to support progression systems, meaningful player growth, and long-term gameplay engagement. - Narrative integration: Work with Narrative, Mission Designers, and Mission Directors to support player-driven storytelling through mechanics and interactive experiences. - Quality and iteration: Regularly review work in progress, gather feedback, identify problems, drive solutions, and ensure assigned player features meet creative and technical quality targets at each milestone. - Documentation and standards: Create and maintain clear documentation covering player systems, features, standards, metrics, best practices, tutorials, and creative processes. - Design innovation: Drive improvements to internal tools used for third-person character prototyping, implementation, and iteration, while identifying opportunities for greater efficiency and creative experimentation. - Mentorship and expertise: Review hero character work across the studio, mentor and coach other Hero Designers, and serve as a subject-matter expert in third-person player character design. - Vision and alignment: Lead brainstorms and reviews, communicate design intent clearly, build cross-functional alignment, and champion inclusive collaboration and strong design values. - Industry awareness: Stay current with the evolution of game-design craft and third-person narrative gameplay, bringing relevant ideas and practices into the development process. - Additional gameplay systems: Take on other gameplay systems design responsibilities when needed to support the broader project.