This job might no longer be available.

Narrative Designer

Square Enix External Studios

This is a chance for a proven narrative designer to work as part of a dedicated team within one of the world’s most respected publishers of video games.

Square Enix External Studios are the publishing development team responsible for franchises as diverse as ‘ Just Cause’ , ‘ Life is Strange ’, and the brand-new ‘ Outriders’ . We are looking for a candidate with a proven track record and a passion for narrative games to successfully help develop our next round of projects.

Based in our London studio (but working primarily from home in the current situation) you will be collaborating with our partners around the world to ensure the overall narrative quality of our externally-developed games is as high as possible. The role involves ensuring the narrative fully engages the target audience while ensuring the creative content supports, drives and maximizes the business goals and ambitions.

You will also be exposed to the wider publishing environment, and as such this role is perfect for designers looking for a new creative challenge.

Requirements

• Contribute to all narrative aspects of a title from a creative and design standpoint including story, narrative-delivery mechanisms, script, characterisation, actor casting and performance, cinematography, pacing and flow, level design and game mechanics.
• Guide our development partners in all areas of narrative design. Continually evaluate titles in development and offer constructive feedback, assistance & solutions to developers to improve weak areas, and make strong areas even better.
• Communicate directly with developers, keeping the relationship as positive and productive as possible. This means working to build an honest and respectful relationship with them, providing meaningful feedback on their performance and ensuring that they understand Square Enix’s development priorities and business requirements.
• Ensure the game’s narrative is compelling, delivered effectively, and complements the gameplay experience.
• Work with the rest of the design team to ensure the core game play supports the narrative goals as early as possible in the development, and delivers the design intention at agreed milestones.
• Ensure the narrative flow, play balance and difficulty curve works well, so that gamers of different skill levels can all explore and enjoy the narrative, while making sure the game is appropriate for its target audience.
• Build a good working relationship with the title’s internal stakeholders and assist them wherever possible to:
  • Set design intentions and priorities for key narrative features
  • Set narrative design-based milestone content
  • Review milestones & project timelines
  • Maintain a clear and consistent narrative design vision for each game
  • Contribute to mid and post-mortems
  • Organize on-going focus testing on all aspects of the narrative
• Understand how your studio partners make games. Learn about their proprietary technology, editors, game engine, pipelines, processes and who does what in the studio
• Provide feedback as requested on franchise extension opportunities, potential new acquisitions, and on titles developed elsewhere within the Square Enix group.
• Perform any other duties as assigned by your line manager.

Key Stakeholders:

Head of Studio; Design Director; Technical Director; Art Director; Designers; Producers; Brand Managers; Community; PR and Marketing; External development studios.

Knowledge & Experience:

Essential:

• Worked as a narrative designer at a video game developer or publisher on at least one critically acclaimed console or PC title from start to finish.
• Experience in narrative design, script writing and cinematic direction to support interactive storytelling.
• Familiarity with popular design techniques, tools, processes and pipelines for building video games, including prototyping, scripting, and level editing.
• Knowledge of industry best practice.

Desirable:

• Will have worked in a narrative design role on several AAA quality and / or critical and commercial successes on console or PC.
• Experience working on branching and / or non-linear narrative.
• Formal cinematography training and practical experience.

Competencies, Skills & Attributes:

Essential:

• Strong creative writing and narrative design skills, with the ability to create stories that resonate with the target audience.
• Advanced written and oral communication skills, with the ability to articulate complex ideas and information clearly and easily to a wide range of audiences.
• A high level of diplomacy whilst being unafraid to be explicitly critical where necessary.
• Must understand what makes good games so special, and have the ability to pick games apart, pointing out what works and what doesn’t.
• Must be able to balance creative and commercial requirements to understand where resources are best spent on a game.
• Pro-active, organized, motivated and passionate team player who always works to the best of their ability.

Desirable:

• Will have a strong competency in tools such as Microsoft Office, Confluence, Jira and Perforce (or equivalent).

Other:

• Willing to travel and stay away from home when required.

Our goal at Square Enix is to hire, retain, develop and promote the best talent, regardless of age, gender, race, religious, belief, sexual orientation or physical ability.

Our pledge to D&I

At Square Enix we believe in the importance of being a diverse and global company, and we stand firmly together against any forms of injustice, intolerance, harassment or discrimination. In our effort to create a truly diverse workforce, we pledge to continue to raise awareness in every step of the employee experience, from recruitment to promotions to ensure equal opportunities for all. One of our goals is to champion diversity in games and at work and work together to inspire real change.

Learning and education around D&I will be a key element for us to continue to grow as an organization. With unconscious bias training, D&I workshops and a variety of initiatives to give our employees the opportunity to be heard and be part of that change to achieve real equality. We need all our efforts to continue to build our culture of inclusion and equality.

We are also proud to partner with UKIE's Raise the Game pledge, BAME in Games and Women in Games, to name a few.

Covid-19 remote working

Square Enix are committed to keeping our employees safe. We are listening closely to government guidelines, and this role will be based remotely until the company sees fit to return to the office. This role will be based in our Blackfriars Studio in London, upon return.