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Senior Narrative Designer - Sledgehammer Games

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Job Description:

Position: Senior Narrative Designer

Your Platform

Located in the San Francisco Bay Area and Melbourne, Australia – we’re the videogame development team behind Call of Duty®: Modern Warfare 3, Call of Duty®: Advanced Warfare and Call of Duty®: WWII . Since our founding in 2009, our greatest passion has been making AAA games. The strength of our team makes us not only excellent at what we do, but also how we do it. We firmly believe in supporting our talented employees to be the best they can be. Here at Sledgehammer Games, everyone is a game maker.

As we head into decade II of development, we’re focused on constantly evolving, innovating and taking risks – which are some of the most rewarding aspects of game development. With world-class audio, design, engineering and art teams, we’ve been able to achieve some of the highest-quality game execution of any studio in the industry. We love what we do and work hard to make sure that each new game we make is even better than the last. Creativity is key, and we’re looking for talented game developers for our exciting next project.

Sledgehammer Games is wholly owned by Activision. To learn more about our studio, please visit us at www.sledgehammergames.com or search for Sledgehammer Games on your favorite social media platform. Want to hear what it’s like at the studio directly from current employees? Check out our #LifeatSHG developer profiles: https://youtu.be/12DUBszg-w4

Your Mission

Sledgehammer Games, an award-winning Activision studio behind such titles as Call of Duty: WW2, is looking to expand and diversify its Narrative Department. We’re seek talented developers to help us grow the team and explore new ways of delivering unique and exciting stories within our titles. You’ll have a unique opportunity to define what narrative means and how we create our worlds at the studio. As part of this team, your day-to-day responsibilities will include dialogue writing, story development, narrative implementation, and collaborating with other departments on narrative elements.

The position will strike a balance between creative writing and technical expertise. This means writing scripted mission dialogue, pacing out gameplay to help tell the story, and contributing to the overall narrative vision. This will require working with all disciplines in the production pipeline integrate story with gameplay. You will also be responsible for attending recording sessions to ensure that the narrative vision is being properly communicated to and captured by the actors.

We at Sledgehammer believe that our stories are made richer and more interesting when they’re created by people from all walks of life. We’d like to encourage everyone to apply for this exciting opportunity if you feel like your individual voice can enrich the team.

COVID-19 Hiring Update: We’ve transitioned to a work-from-home model, and we’re continuing to interview and hire during this time. This role is expected to begin as a remote position. We understand each person’s circumstances may be unique and will work with you to explore possible interim options.

Responsibilities:

Help develop compelling, engaging, and immersive narrative game experiences.

Help maintain the narrative vision of the project.

Explore new ways to bring characters to life with a practical approach that blends into or seamlessly with gameplay.

Work with Lead Narrative Designer to uphold and champion the narrative vision of each project.

Write and iterate on compelling dialogue for characters and missions.

Assist the Lead Narrative Designer in mentoring more junior members of the team.

Collaborate with designers to create mission structure that identifies narrative beats and plot lines to support the story.

Review content to ensure narrative work is seamlessly integrated into the game play experience.

Work with Tools teams to improve writing workflows and processes.

Successfully guide voice-over recording and performance capture sessions.

Have a passion for interactive storytelling.

Maintain narrative documentation to constantly reflect the latest iterations in the vision.

Player Profile (Minimum Requirements)

Significant involvement in and contributions to video games in a writing or narrative design role

Experience in all main writing skill areas, including brainstorming, story development, character creation, world-building, and dialogue drafting

Able to act independently on writing tasks

Excellent organizational skills and able to work well under deadlines

Work and thrive in a collaborative team environment

Knowledge of industry trends and successful intellectual properties

Plays and has knowledge of modern video games

Desirable Skills (Extra Points)

Experience writing branching and non-linear dialogue for games

Prior VO session guidance and direction

Scripting experience with text or visual scripting languages

Successfully published written work (novels, short fiction, film, television, comics)

Bachelor's degree or equivalent professional experience

To Apply:

Along with your resume’, please prepare and submit samples of your strongest writing – Ideally a minimum of two completed scenes, or work of any format (such as game scripts, tele- or screenplays, short stories, comics or graphic novels) that demonstrate your understanding of and dedication to narrative craft. You will need to put your work online, and submit the URL to us on your resume’ so that we can easily find it and read your samples.

Our World

Activision Blizzard, Inc. (NASDAQ: ATVI), is one of the world's largest and most successful interactive entertainment companies and is at the intersection of media, technology and entertainment. We are home to some of the most beloved entertainment franchises including Call of Duty ®, World of Warcraft® , Overwatch ®, Diablo ®, Candy Crush ™ and Bubble Witch ™. Our combined entertainment network delights hundreds of millions of monthly active users in 196 countries, making us the largest gaming network on the planet!

Our ability to build immersive and innovate worlds is only enhanced by diverse teams working in an inclusive environment. We aspire to have a culture where everyone can thrive in order to connect and engage the world through epic entertainment. We provide a suite of benefits that promote physical, emotional and financial well-being for ‘Every World’ - we’ve got our employees covered!

The videogame industry and therefore our business is fast-paced and will continue to evolve. As such, the duties and responsibilities of this role may be changed as directed by the Company at any time to promote and support our business and relationships with industry partners.

Sledgehammer Games is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, national origin, protected veteran status, or any other basis protected by applicable law and will not be discriminated against on the basis of disability.