Combat Designer (Senior and above)

Location: You’ll be based in our Cambridge studio with the option for hybrid working so being within a commutable distance is essential. If this requires you to relocate, we offer visa sponsorship and relocation assistance.

Level: Senior and above.

About us: Ninja Theory is a five-time BAFTA award winning games company based in Cambridge, UK, and part of Xbox Game Studios. Our diverse and welcoming team values collaboration, quality, and excellence. We strive to maintain an inclusive culture that empowers deep focus, rewards creativity, and supports personal and professional growth.

Our Mission is: To Craft Life-changing Art with Game-changing Tech and we are committed to bringing together the best talent in the industry help us fulfil that promise.

Our Values: Greatness through Excellence, Teamwork & Integrity.

Your Role: As a combat designer, you will work closely with a team of veteran designers pushing the boundaries of what is possible in melee combat and gameplay design, by taking our studio’s cinematic flair and combining it with new levels of player freedom and choice. You will be tasked with creating and implementing systems and mechanics for full scale, incidental combat, as well as out of combat enemy behaviour, and more. You will also be responsible for working with the level design team to ensure combat encounters are engaging and fun, while also meeting narrative requirements. You will:

• Understand, and engage with, the direction for combat and gameplay.
• Work closely with the Combat Team to ensure alignment on all aspects.
• Create Enemy and Boss designs, taking them from concept to implementation.
• Be autonomous and provide a constant, critical eye on the quality of the work.
• Collaborate with a multi-disciplinary team to implement feedback.
• Collaborate with the team to develop in and out of combat systems for enemy positing and behaviour.
• Ensure combat encounters provide the right level of progression, engagement, and fun.

Requirements

We believe that skills and experience are not mutually exclusive. For that reason, we encourage you to apply even if you feel you don't meet 100% of the desirable requirements listed below.

Your Skill: This is a hands-on role, using custom tools and Unreal Engine 5, which requires a deep understanding of combat and gameplay mechanics, systems, and player experience in third-person action-adventure games. It will involve working closely with a cross-discipline team of animation, audio, code, and character art as well as the ability to prototype and iterate on combat and game systems.

Essential:

• Good knowledge of Unreal Engine 5 or equivalent.
• Deep understanding of combat mechanics and systems in third-person action-adventure games.
• Excellent communication and collaboration skills.
• Ability to work in a fast-paced and dynamic environment.
• Ability to prototype and iterate on combat systems quickly.

Desirable:

• Unreal Engine 5

Your Experience: You are a passionate developer with an appetite for design excellence, who has hands-on experience designing combat mechanics, enemies, or bosses, for AAA character-action games.

Essential:

• Experience working closely with various departments, including animation, character art, code, and design.

Desirable:

• Have an interest, or direct experience, with wider game systems and mechanics.

Benefits

Our Benefits: We offer wide-ranging benefits, including, but not limited to:

• Hybrid, flexible work model with no fixed working hours.
• 5 weeks holiday plus 1 additional day for each year of service up to a maximum of 33 days per annum, plus bank holidays.
• Enhanced family leave.
• Bonus scheme.
• Annual wellbeing allowance.
• Private healthcare including medical, dental, and optical cover.
• Mentoring and career development.
• Income protection.
• Life Insurance.
• Where applicable, relocation assistance and visa sponsorship.

Working from Ninja House, you will benefit from our custom-built studio which offers a luxurious setting with cutting-edge facilities at your fingertips, including full motion capture stage. You’ll also receive complimentary catered lunch from our on-site pub, The Bird or Worm?

Our Process: To ensure a fair and inclusive hiring process which aligns to our studio equality, diversity, and inclusion (ED&I) strategy, we use anonymised screening which automatically obscures personal identifying information from applications, helping to reduce unconscious bias from the start.

Where possible, we kindly ask that you submit anonymised reels/portfolios to support our ED&I commitments.

This is a fantastic opportunity to join a BAFTA Award winning studio in the Xbox Game Studios Group and be part of pushing the boundaries of interactive entertainment.

Please note, successful applicants will be asked to complete a test as part of the recruitment process.

This advert closes on Thursday 20th March 2025.