Principal Designer, Combat AI - Unannounced Game
Blizzard Entertainment - Irvine, CA
posted 3 days ago
About the position
At Blizzard, we craft genre-defining games and legendary worlds for all to share. Through unparalleled creativity and storytelling, we create immersive universes and iconic characters that are beloved across platforms, borders, backgrounds, and generations - only made possible by building a work environment that nurtures the artistry of game development and unleashes the aspirations of our people. As the Principal Combat Designer, you will oversee the conception and production of all components that contribute to ensuring combat is intuitive to learn, challenging to master, and satisfyingly fun. The scope of work to deliver the combat experience will impact the player, enemies, and environment. You will ensure every aspect of the players' actions are both satisfying and responsive. Under your care, monsters will be interesting, memorable, and challenging, from the initial threats all the way to legendary boss encounters players will talk about for decades. You will work hand-in-hand with level design to ensure the levels support the needs of combat and enemy placement. This role is anticipated to be a hybrid work position, with some work on-site and some work-from-home. The potential home studio for this role is Irvine, CA.
Responsibilities
- Take ownership of all combat features and systems - from ideation, through prototyping, and final best-in-class execution.
- Work closely with the Technical Director to build tools for combat and systems implementation.
- Create one-page designs, briefs, system outlines, and whatever other communication tools are necessary for succinctly and effectively communicating vision.
- Leverage technical expertise to implement systems.
- Collaborate with multiple disciplines, ensuring partners are involved and informed throughout development.
- Provide regular active feedback across all your features, and across the game.
- Remain current on industry trends including new game genres, new game design techniques, and trending audio-visual excellence.
Requirements
- 15+ years of experience in combat or systems design or applicable combination of education and experience.
- Proven experience leading design teams; have shipped at least one major title in a leadership capacity.
- Experience leading multiple functional teams in feature development.
- Experience with AAA game engines.
- Experience developing design concepts from conception to implementation in a clear, detailed manner.
Nice-to-haves
- Your work experience is in the AAA space.
- Built a combat design team - hire, train, and mentor designers of combat and systems.
- Familiarity with programming and scripting languages such as C++, C#, Blueprint, Lua, or JavaScript.
- A background in combat design, content design, or tools development.
- Strong documentation philosophies and strategies to evangelize your designs.
- Playing a variety of video game genres and titles.
Benefits
- Medical, dental, vision, health savings account or health reimbursement account, healthcare spending accounts, dependent care spending accounts, life and AD&D insurance, disability insurance.
- 401(k) with Company match, tuition reimbursement, charitable donation matching.
- Paid holidays and vacation, paid sick time, floating holidays, compassion and bereavement leaves, parental leave.
- Mental health & wellbeing programs, fitness programs, free and discounted games, and a variety of other voluntary benefit programs like supplemental life & disability, legal service, ID protection, rental insurance, and others.
- Relocation assistance if the Company requires that you move geographic locations for the job.
