Lead Narrative Designer

As a Lead Narrative Designer at Hangar 13, you will shape the narrative delivery for an open-world action-adventure title. This role involves leading and mentoring the Narrative Design team, driving the design and execution of complex storytelling systems across missions and the open world. You will also collaborate with external co-development partners, ensuring alignment with the creative vision and production goals. The position requires being based in the Brighton Studio at least three days a week.

Must Have

• Lead and mentor the Narrative Design team
• Drive the design, iteration, and execution of complex, interconnected storytelling systems
• Oversee and collaborate with external co-development partners
• Collaborate with the Lead Writer in overseeing the implementation and quality of all non-cinematic narrative content
• Partner with Narrative, Cinematic, Animation, and Technical Leads for cohesive storytelling
• Design and implement narrative systems, such as Conversations and State Management
• Ensure all narrative content adheres to established quality bar, metrics, and pacing guidelines
• Develop and evangelize best practices for designers
• Analyze, validate, and incorporate feedback from the team and external user testing
• Author and maintain design documentation (e.g., systems designs, flowcharts, best practices)
• Foster a collaborative and high-performance culture
• Review, debug, and provide constructive critique on story content
• Collaborate with Production to ensure delivery of content on time and to required quality
• Oversee and direct the workflow of external partners and co-development teams
• Provide coaching and mentoring to the team
• Experience defining and delivering narrative systems from concept to live operation
• Helped shipped at least one AAA game in Unreal in a Lead Narrative Design role or similar
• Ability to drive prioritization and scheduling of work for the whole department
• Strong collaboration skills with team members from other disciplines and locations
• Proven experience in leadership topics and coaching individuals

Good to Have

• Experience managing outsourced or distributed content teams
• Strong documentation skills, proficiency with Wiki systems or Confluence is a plus
• Bachelor’s degree, or equivalent experience, in Design or other related discipline

Lead Narrative Designer

Who We Are

Hangar 13 is an internal 2K development studio that crafts unforgettable AAA gaming experiences across all major platforms. With studios in Brighton (UK), Brno, and Prague (CZ), we work as one team to bring to life narrative-rich games that keep players immersed. Each of our locations provides the opportunity to work with some of the most talented developers in the industry, on creatively challenging and exciting projects, in a diverse and welcoming environment.

Job Summary

As a Lead Narrative Designer you will lead on the shape of the narrative delivery of our next open-world action-adventure title. You will lead and mentor the Narrative Design team, driving the design, iteration, and execution of complex, interconnected storytelling systems across our missions and open world.

In addition to leading internal team members, you will also oversee and collaborate with external co-development partners, ensuring their work aligns with our creative vision, technical standards, and production goals

Please note that we do require someone to be based from our Brighton Studio at least 3 days a week.

Duties and Responsibilities

Design

• Collaborate with the Lead Writer in overseeing the implementation and quality of all non-cinematic narrative content, from critical dialogue to in-world lore
• Partner with the Narrative, Cinematic, Animation and Technical Leads to ensure a cohesive blend of storytelling, visual direction, and gameplay functionality across all story telling features
• Design and implement narrative systems, such as Conversations and State Management, ensuring robust, consistent, and validated use across all design disciplines.
• Ensure all narrative content adheres to established quality bar, metrics and pacing guidelines, through continuous review and iteration
• Develop and evangelize best practices for the designers to utilize in their content
• Analyse, validate and incorporate feedback from the team and external user testing
• Author and maintain design documentation (e.g., systems designs, flowcharts, best practices)

Leadership

• Lead a team of designers to create the story-telling systems of the game, and ensure that they are filled with high quality content
• Foster a collaborative and high-performance culture by empowering the team to take ownership and deliver high-quality work
• Review, debug, and provide constructive critique on story content, focusing on player experience and adherence to design guidelines
• Collaborate with Production to ensure delivery of content on time and to required quality
• Oversee and direct the workflow of external partners and co-development teams, ensuring their output integrates seamlessly with the internal Narrative Design pipeline and meets internal quality standards.
• Provide coaching and mentoring to the team

Essential Skills, Attributes and Experience

• Experience defining and delivering narrative systems (e.g., dynamic dialogue, procedural encounter logic) from concept to live operation
• Helped shipped at least one AAA game in Unreal in a Lead Narrative Design role or similar
• Ability to drive prioritization and scheduling of work for the whole department
• Strong collaboration skills, able to work well with team members from other disciplines and in other locations
• Proven experience in leadership topics and coaching individuals

Highly Desirable

• Experience managing outsourced or distributed content teams
• Strong documentation skills, proficiency with Wiki systems or Confluence is a plus
• Bachelor’s degree, or equivalent experience, in Design or other related discipline

Hangar 13 prides itself on the diversity of its team members, partners, and communities. For this reason, we remain committed to providing equal employment opportunity in all aspects of the employment relationship, from recruitment and hiring through compensation, benefits, discipline and termination.

As an equal opportunity employer, we are also committed to ensuring that qualified individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation(s) to participate in the job application and/or interview process, to perform their essential job functions, and to receive other benefits and privileges of employment. Please contact us if you need to request reasonable accommodation.

SECURITY NOTICE - We have recently been made aware of increasing occurrences of bad actors posing as company HR personnel to gain information from "potential candidates", in the form of job interviews and offers. These scams can be quite sophisticated and appear legitimate.

Please know that Hangar 13 and 2K never use instant messaging apps to contact prospective employees or to conduct interviews.

If you believe you have been a victim of such a scam, you may fill out a complaint form at https://complaint.ic3.gov/ and https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/ detailing as much as possible. We are taking these matters very seriously and apologize for any inconvenience.

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