Combat Designer

At Counterplay Games, we are in active development for a new action shooter title. We are a fully remote studio with the drive to grow beyond the boundaries and achievements set by our previous games. Our team consists of self-motivated, passionate, and respectful individuals who value a diverse and inclusive environment.

We are seeking a Mid to Senior level Combat Designer to join our Combat Design team. This role reports to our Lead Combat Designer as well as our Design Director. As a member of the greater design team, your contribution will help create our own blend of action shooter and action combat experience in our next title.

Responsibilities:

• Develop player combat and traversal mechanics, abilities and cameras from initial concept or work-in-progress feature to completion
• Develop enemy archetypes, enemy variants and AI behaviors from initial concept or work-in-progress feature and content to completion
• Collaborate with members of Animation, Engineering, VFX, Audio and Art teams to develop prototypes, features, and content by synthesizing their feedback into actionable iterations without losing sight of the greater design goals
• Stay current on competitive product research and gather references to guide exploration and prototyping of new gameplay features and content
• Push for quality and best practices to help foster a culture of design excellency
• Anticipate bottlenecks, problems and limitations in pipelines and processes through different viewpoints and make constructive recommendations to improve them

Requirements:

• Mid level - 3 to 5 years of combat design experience in FPS or 3rd person action shooter and action combat titles
• Senior level - 6 to 10 years of combat design experience in FPS or 3rd person action shooter and action combat titles
• Intermediate to advance level of hands-on feature and content prototyping and authoring experience in Unreal, Unity or other proprietary scripting tools and environments 
• Analyze and articulate combat gameplay pillars and mechanics that go into creating a holistic combat experience in mainstream FPS and 3rd person action shooter and action combat titles
• Analyze and articulate enemy archetype design and how archetypes are used to teach, reinforce or disrupt player's play patterns
• Knowledge of how combat gameplay difficulties are scaled through manipulation of elements on player, enemies and AI behaviors
• Deep knowledge of ingredients that go into making the right “combat-feel” for different genres of shooters and action combat titles
• Obsess about fluidity and responsiveness of player mechanics and deep understanding of how these qualities are translated into animation implementation details such as target tracking, frame ranges, blend in and out time, interruption rules, etc.
• Must be a gamer who loves and is well versed in FPS, 3rd person shooter, action, and action combat games
• Great knowledge of choreography of action, combat and fight scenes from different mediums (i.e.martial arts, films, anime, comics, etc.)