This job might no longer be available.

Senior Game Designer – Permanent

OVERVIEW

At PlayStation London Studio, we are on a mission to make award-winning, landmark games. Our upcoming PlayStation 5 online multiplayer game will be focused on a brand-new IP we are extraordinarily excited about.

Our new game is close to our hearts, as the whole team collaborated on coming up with the concept from the very beginning. We’ve seen this idea grow from a seed, and now we’re looking for new starters to continue our journey on shaping our plans for this AAA project.

We’re also a part of the PlayStation Studios family, a collective of teams - from Insomniac to Naughty Dog and many more. As such, we have solid support system – often knowledge sharing industry advancements so that all our studios, individually lead the way to create memorable gaming experiences.

As a Senior Game Designer, you will sit within our Gameplay team and will be directly responsible for the development of gameplay mechanics and systems, working with our Lead Gameplay Designer and team of Technical Designers and Gameplay Engineers. You will also collaborate with the rest of our design team to build highly re-playable missions.

Therefore, you need to have excellent instincts for what makes fantastic and engaging gameplay as well as good judgement and decision-making skills. They should be great collaborators and communicate what they need from other teams to improve and balance gameplay.

About you

• A player-centric developer – always thinking about the player’s experience.
• Great at designing gameplay and know how to tune for ‘feel’.
• Flexible in your workflow and can learn to use new tools quickly.
• Happy to show your work early and embrace feedback from all teams.
• Organised and always looking for ways to improve processes.
• You should have good interpersonal skills and be able to form relationships with your teammates.
• You are authentic, honest, and comfortable challenging the status quo.

Scope of Work

• Propose new gameplay mechanics in response to briefs.
• Work with the Gameplay team to write design documents.
• Request features from Technical Design and Gameplay Coders.
• Work with Engineers and Technical Designers to develop and configure gameplay mechanics.
• Balance gameplay for the best possible feel.

Experience / Knowledge

• You have experience creating, owning and delivering large scale gameplay features, preferably on PC and Console, from concept to in the hands of players.
• Visual Scripting experience.
• Able to present and communicate the design to multi-discipline teams.
• Great design documentation skills.

Pluses

• Experience designing Coop gameplay (local or online).
• Experience with Combat Design.
• Experience designing and implementing well balanced AI Enemies.
• Experience designing for online multiplayer gameplay.
• Experience working on GaaS or ‘Ongoing’ games.
• Experience in developing AAA games.
• Experience in working with Engines and tools such as Unity or Unreal.
• Experience Scripting in C#.

Impact

Our Gameplay Designers are hugely important to our journey, as they work closely with the team to create and balance the mechanics, to deliver gameplay which keeps players coming back for more. As part of a Sony first-party studio, your work will be played by millions of players across the world.

Complexity

The level of the role’s complexity depends entirely on experience and seniority. Our Principal and Senior Gameplay Designers will take on large, interconnected gameplay mechanics and would be encouraged to set an excellent standard of work and offer support to less experienced Designers. Less Senior candidates would support those key features with individual mechanics which form the moment-to-moment gameplay.

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

We encourage you to bring your best-unaltered self to work. Inclusivity is one of our studio values, which means we embrace different perspectives to fuel our creativity and we know that our games are stronger for it!

It is important to us that our teams are passionate about diversity and inclusion. They must understand that these words speak to people’s lived experiences that may differ to their own. We encourage our teams to educate themselves and show support and their commitment to DE&I (diversity, equity, and inclusion). As an example, some of our outreach activities include giving talks, mentoring, speaking at schools, running roundtables and much more.

We therefore welcome applications from all groups who are underrepresented in the games industry. We can offer training to upskill our team, so if you don’t feel you meet 100% of the job criteria, we still strongly encourage you to apply and look forward to hearing from you.

_______________________________________________________________________

Our roles can be flexible in terms of work location in the UK. We will consider the individual’s preference for hybrid, remote or onsite working. Unfortunately, we are not able to accommodate remote working outside of the UK.

However, if you wish to relocate to the UK and require sponsorship, we can support you with the visa process.

We have so many benefits, and we felt that if we listed them all out here it might look like we are bragging! What we can say is that we have you covered, from health and wellbeing, to finance and personal development, there is something there for everyone! If you would like to know more head to our benefits and perks page!