Mission Designer

Full time, on-site role in Santa Monica, CA. Office is located near downtown Santa Monica – near metro and freeways.

About the role

We are seeking a Mission Designer to create highly memorable missions that combine best-in-class storytelling with action gameplay for an all-new open world IP built in Unreal Engine 5. As a Mission Designer, you will collaborate with a multi-disciplinary team and be a hands-on contributor and implementer of story missions including critical path and side missions alongside single-player campaign features.

Responsibilities

• Own implementation of engaging, diverse, innovative missions within a story-driven, open-world game.
• Work with the Lead Mission Designer to develop best practices and robust solutions for faster iteration across the team.
• Challenge the status quo and demonstrate understanding of where open-world mission design can change and where it's already working.
• Build brand new, innovative game systems for missions that can help define core features across the rest of the game.
• Leverage the game's existing open-world systems and mechanics to create dynamic and unpredictable mission experiences that adapt to player choices and actions.
• Provide feedback to other mission designers to improve the quality of the design and storytelling.
• Create documentation to support missions, mission tools, and game features developed for missions.
• Implement and design changes based on play testing data from both internal and external sources.

Requirements

• 1-2+ years of experience building mission content, ideally within an open-world game.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills.
• Innovative thinker with creative problem-solving skills who can thrive in a collaborative team environment.
• High-quality portfolio showcasing previous scripting, encounter or mission design work in games.
• Strong understanding of storytelling and narrative design.

Nice to have

• Experience building game-wide systems or features.
• Experience with level design, blockout or world-building.
• Experience in UE4 or UE5.
• Experience working with co-development partners.
• Experience working on an open world title.

Pay

The base pay range for this position is $100,000 to $115,000 per year. Actual compensation is based on market location and may vary depending on job-related knowledge, skills, and experience.

Benefits

• Paid time off
• Sick time
• Company holidays
• Parental leave
• Medical, dental, and vision insurance
• Life insurance
• Disability insurance
• 401(k)

Certain roles may also be eligible for bonus and equity.

About Absurd Ventures

Absurd Ventures is a media company creating new IP across all platforms and for all formats. Absurd Ventures is building narrative worlds, creating characters, and writing stories for a variety of genres, without regard to medium, to be produced for live-action and animation; video games and other interactive content; books, graphic novels, and scripted podcasts.