Art Director - Hard Surface (Apex Legends)

Locations

• Vancouver - Great Northern Way, British Columbia, Canada
• Los Angeles - Chatsworth, California, United States of America
• Madison, Wisconsin, United States of America

Role Details

Respawn is looking for an experienced Art Director, Hard Surface to help define, elevate, and maintain the visual quality of hard-surface content for Apex Legends. This role will guide the artistic direction of weapons, vehicles, props, environmental technology, gameplay objects, and other mechanical or manufactured assets that contribute to the game’s distinctive competitive sci-fi identity.

Responsibilities

• Define, uphold, and evolve the core experience hard-surface visual direction for Apex Legends, including weapons, gadgets, props, vehicles, world technology, gameplay objects, and other mechanical or manufactured assets.
• Ensure hard-surface designs support and evolve Apex’s visual and gameplay pillars: functional sci-fi design, strong material language, player readability, and characterful worldbuilding.
• Provide clear, actionable creative direction through paintovers, drawovers, reference boards, written feedback, asset reviews, and in-game evaluations.
• Partner closely with Concept Art, Weapon Art, Character Art, Environment Art, Design, Animation, VFX, Tech Art, Production, and Outsource teams to deliver cohesive, high-quality content.
• Maintain a high quality bar from concept through final implementation, balancing creative ambition with gameplay clarity, technical performance, production scope, and live-service timelines.
• Lead reviews with clarity and respect, helping teams solve creative and production challenges while building alignment around visual goals.
• Mentor artists and external partners, helping strengthen hard-surface design sensibility, technical execution, and overall artistic judgment.
• Create and refine briefs, style guides, visual targets, benchmarks, and feedback processes that improve consistency and efficiency across hard-surface asset production.

Requirements

• Experience art directing weapons, first-person assets, gameplay props, vehicles, grounded sci-fi technology, or environmental hard-surface content.
• Significant professional experience in game art, with a strong focus on hard-surface art direction, concept, weapon art, vehicle design, prop art, environment technology, or related disciplines.
• Proven experience shipping high-quality hard-surface content for AAA games, ideally action, shooter, sci-fi, or live-service titles.
• Strong understanding of visual design principles including silhouette, proportion, shape language, material definition, surface breakup, scale, readability, and functionality.
• Excellent ability to give clear, constructive, and actionable feedback to internal teams and external partners.
• Strong knowledge of modern game art pipelines, including concept-to-model workflows, PBR materials, optimization, LODs, engine implementation, and real-time constraints.
• Experience collaborating across multiple disciplines and balancing creative ambition with gameplay, schedule, and technical needs.
• Strong communication, leadership, and presentation skills.
• A portfolio demonstrating excellent hard-surface taste, visual problem-solving, and experience guiding assets from concept to final in-game quality.

Compensation and Benefits

CBCA: $160,700 - $224,700 CAD CUSD: $182,600 - $276,300 USD

PAY RANGES
* British Columbia (depending on location e.g. Vancouver vs. Victoria)
* California (depending on location e.g. Los Angeles vs. San Francisco)

Pay is just one part of the overall compensation at EA.
In the US, we offer a package of benefits including paid time off (3 weeks per year to start), 80 hours per year of sick time, 16 paid company holidays per year, 10 weeks paid time off to bond with baby, medical/dental/vision insurance, life insurance, disability insurance, and 401(k) to regular full-time employees. Certain roles may also be eligible for bonus and equity.
For Canada, we offer a package of benefits including vacation (3 weeks per year to start), 10 days per year of sick time, paid top-up to EI/QPIP benefits up to 100% of base salary when you welcome a new child (12 weeks for maternity, and 4 weeks for parental/adoption leave), extended health/dental/vision coverage, life insurance, disability insurance, retirement plan to regular full-time employees. Certain roles may also be eligible for bonus and equity.

About Electronic Arts

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