Senior Audio Designer - Narrative Focus
HoYoverse is committed to providing immersive virtual world experiences to players around the world, with popular games including Genshin Impact, Honkai: Star Rail, Honkai Impact 3rd, Tears of Themis, and Zenless Zone Zero. Community is at the heart of everything we do, and we consistently explore cutting-edge game development technologies.
About the Role
We are building a game where narrative is discovered through both traditional means like cutscenes and emergent gameplay elements like dialogue choices. We’re looking for someone to help craft a coherent audio story that stitches intermittent parts together to deliver a unified experience. You will work with gameplay, narrative, and art teams to define the player experience and internal processes for creating non-linear stories. This role requires resourcefulness, clear communication, and a deep understanding of how games feel from the player's perspective.
You will partner with quest designers, technical designers, and engineers to build the audio functions and logic needed to deliver this experience. You will also mentor in-house audio talent to elevate the audio experience through your work and guidance.
Responsibilities
- Co-create the audio vision for narrative cohesion.
- Craft and implement dynamic audio systems in Wwise and UE5 to make branching gameplay feel like an authored experience.
- Collaborate with designers across disciplines (gameplay, systems, quest, and narrative) to identify where story emerges through play and propose audio solutions that strengthen those moments.
- Help the team identify risks and keep the audio vision moving forward even when broader design is still evolving.
- Partner with technical personnel (tools engineers and audio programmers) to translate systemic narrative design needs into clear technical requirements for audio tools and pipelines.
- Establish and document best practices for systemic audio design, creating shared language and process across the team.
- Play the game relentlessly to identify stylistic inconsistencies, dead zones, and poor transitions, advocating for the audio experience across disciplines.
Requirements
- 5+ years of game audio design experience.
- A portfolio/demo reel demonstrating systemic or non-linear audio design, showing how audio adapts to player choice, state changes, or emergent gameplay.
- Mastery of dynamic audio implementation in a modern game engine (Unreal Engine 5 strongly preferred).
- Expertise with Wwise or FMOD, especially for large-scale projects with multiple systems and complex routing.
- A strong personal relationship with games—you play widely, think critically about how games work, and understand how audio shapes the player's experience.
- Excellent communication skills, capable of inspiring others with a creative vision and clearly explaining technical needs to engineering partners.
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience on shipped branching narrative games, open-world titles, immersive sims, or games where story emerges through systems.
- Experience mentoring other audio designers or providing creative feedback.
- Familiarity with technical pipelines and tools used in quest or narrative scripting (e.g., visual scripting, dialogue systems).
Benefits
- 100% employer-paid healthcare premiums for you and your dependents.
- Generous paid time off.
- 401K / RRSP plan.
- Employer-paid life and disability insurance.
- Team-building activities throughout the year.
- Flexible working hours.
Pay
The base pay range for this position is $135,000 to $175,000 USD per year (Los Angeles only). Actual pay may vary depending on relevant knowledge, skills, and experience. Total compensation includes salary, company bonuses, sign-on bonuses, and relocation packages.