Senior Cinematic Designer

At ArenaNet, we’ve always believed that games are art. They have the power to communicate ideas and tell stories. They can change the way we think, reflect our cultures, and move us. As the developer of the award-winning Guild Wars game series, we’re proud to share our passion for the online worlds we’ve created with over 21 million players worldwide.

ArenaNet develops and publishes games for every kind of person, which means our games need to be built by every kind of person. We believe the best experiences come from working together, celebrating differences, and helping each of our team members shine.

We’re looking for a Cinematic Designer to bridge the gap between cinematics and in-game systems to help create a visually compelling story experience. In this role, you’ll be crafting cinevents (scripted events), gameplay cues, and UI prompts to glue the various elements of story (cutscenes, dialogue scenes, and gameplay) together.

WHAT YOU'LL DO

• Working with the cinematic, narrative, design, and technical leadership, drive and construct the visual storytelling of cinevents and other cinematic design elements.
• Utilizing the Unreal Engine, set up and maintain cinevents and dialogue scenes from start to finish: from layout to final implementation.
• Help hook up cinematic moments (cutscenes, cinevents, dialogue scenes) into the level and story design, ensuring good flow between design into a cinematic and back again.
• Help identify moments to plus the player experience and autonomy within the story using cinematic elements.
• Work with production and cinematic leadership to identify needed assets, calling out for new asset creation (cinematic animation, vfx, audio, etc), to complete cinevents and other cinematic design elements.
• Help refine the pipeline and processes for cinevents and dialogue scenes, and maintain supporting documentation.
• Assist with motion capture sessions that support cinematic content.
• Validate and test the cinematic design to ensure bugs are spotted early.

WHAT YOU'LL NEED TO BE SUCCESSFUL

• Bachelor’s degree, or equivalent experience
• 5+ years of experience in cinematic work for games.
• 2+ years of design-related experience.
• 3+ years of Unreal Engine experience.
• At least one shipped title using Unreal Engine and Sequencer.
• Portfolio demonstrating strong understanding of choreography, timing, editing, and design, with an emphasis on telling heartfelt character stories.
• Excellent communication, interpersonal, and organizational skills. Demonstrated ability to collaborate, taking direction from stakeholders on the needs of the scene.
• Able to collaborate with engineering, tools, and tech art teams to find good technical solutions.
• Experience with Autodesk Maya.

PLUSES (NICE TO HAVES)

• Good storyboarding skills.
• Passion for games and storytelling.

This role is remote-friendly, but we are currently prioritizing candidates who are local to the Bellevue, WA area and open to occasional onsite collaboration.

Don’t meet every single requirement on this job post? Studies have shown that women and people of color are less likely to apply to jobs unless they meet every single qualification. At ArenaNet, we believe diversity in culture, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and backgrounds make us a better team – we celebrate it. So, if you’re excited about this role, but your experience doesn’t align perfectly with every qualification listed, we encourage you to apply anyway. You may be just the right candidate for this or other roles.