Cinematic Animator, Open World

CD PROJEKT RED is on the lookout for a skilled and passionate Cinematic Open World Animator to join our team for a one year fixed-term contract as we expand the boundaries of immersive storytelling through gameplay. This is a unique opportunity to help shape how the living, breathing world of our games feels, moves, and connects with the player, beyond the confines of traditional cutscenes.

As a Cinematic Open World Animator, you’ll be crafting animations that bring dynamic, non-player characters (NPCs), animals, creatures, and environmental interactions to life. Your work will support the creation of world routines, behaviors, ambient scenes, and contextual events, always with narrative intent and gameplay responsiveness in mind. Whether it’s a merchant setting up their stall, an animal or creature with its routine reacting to player presence, or civilians engaging in their daily lives, your animation will help give the world soul and believability.

You’ll work closely with various design teams and cross-disciplinary departments, from Open World and Gameplay design to Technical Animation and Asset Team, in a highly communicative and collaborative environment. Together, we aim to create a world that feels systemic, responsive, and rich with narrative detail.  If you’re driven by systemic storytelling, emergent animation challenges, and creating moments that feel meaningful even outside of dialogue or cinematics, this is the role for you.

Daily Responsibilities 

• Being a game developer first — thinking about how your animations will look, feel, and respond within dynamic gameplay and systemic world scenarios.
• Taking ownership of animation content for a specific area of the game world, and collaborating in a multi-disciplinary team to deliver immersive open world experiences.
• Delivering work that aligns with the overall artistic and narrative direction of the project — even outside traditional cinematics.
• Creating final, high-quality animation assets for world routines, ambient behaviors, creatures, environmental interactions, and narrative-driven systemic events — using both motion capture and keyframe techniques.
• Collaborating on a daily basis with the Cinematic Animation Lead and other departments (e.g. Gameplay, Open World Design, Narrative…) to ensure animations serve gameplay and worldbuilding goals.
• Estimating time required to complete your tasks and delivering on schedule with attention to implementation details.
• Rapidly prototyping and iterating animations to test ideas and bring systemic interactions to life.
• Offering creative and technical solutions to everyday animation challenges, especially those tied to systemic or emergent behaviors.
• Sharing knowledge with the team and supporting less experienced animators through feedback and mentorship.

• Documented at least 2 years of experience in animation working on games or in the film industry.
• An animation reel proving specialist level skillset with a clear explanation of what you did.
• Being able to work proactively in multi-disciplinary teams.
• Driving to receive, seek and provide constructive feedback.
• Ability to self-manage and make responsible decisions about time and project priorities.
• Solid knowledge of animation principles and eye for dynamic poses.
• Experience working with motion capture.
• Professional knowledge of Motion Builder and/or Maya.
• Outstanding creativity and very strong commitment to a project.
• Desire to create great games and passion for animation.
• Fluent level of English (spoken and written).

Nice to have
(Please note that these skills are not required to apply for the position)

• Graduation in the field of animation (including animation courses).
• Having shipped AAA game title.
• A great understanding of what it means to be a game developer.
• Experience animating FACS systems.
• Experience working on open world games.
• Experience working in Unreal Engine.
• Basic knowledge of working with animation in any game engine.
• Basic knowledge of scripting or programming.
• Basic Technical Animation knowledge.

Working mode

For this role you can choose between a remote-first or office-first working mode.

• Office-First: working primarily from the Warsaw, Wroclaw, or Cracow office for a minimum of 10 days per month.
• Remote-First: working from home, or from any location that is within 3 hours away of the UTC +2 time zone.

Perks & Professional Growth

• Flexible working hours — start your workday anytime between 8:00 and 10:00 AM.
• A welcome pack filled with goodies — to help you feel right at home once you join the team.
• Trainings, lectures and courses — internal workshops, external training for each employee, ‘Meet a star’ events, knowledge-sharing initiatives, online tutorials, and e-learning classes are all available. There’s always something to learn!
• Merch — gifts for newborn rebels and regular chances to nab some cool swag!

Health & Well-being

• Private medical healthcare — a selection of medical plans with dental care to choose from, which are also accessible for your partner and relatives.
• Psychological care — free mental health support and various well-being webinars. 
• Multisport card — gain access to a wide number of sporting and fitness facilities across the city.

Social Activities & Life in the Office

• Dog-friendly office — dog owner? Bring your pooch with you and look after them while working! There’s always a furry friend or two to meet at the studio.
• Social events — we host regular gatherings at the studio where we can all unwind, play games, and just have some fun together.
• Healthy selections — ​​organic fruit, snacks, muesli, organic honey, vegan milk, and speciality coffee are all at your disposal around the studio. Enjoy!
• Truly international working environment — a chance to meet and work with a diverse selection of people from all around the world.

Head office in Warsaw

• Sustainable campus with an eco ethos — solar panels provide green energy, 2000 plants and an air-filtering system to help provide clean air, electric car charging points, flower meadows, and more green features in the works.
• An onsite, well-equipped gym with a climbing wall, daily Gym Assistant support and yoga and healthy spine classes.
• Car and bike parking spaces.
• A designated space for your bicycle, as well as bicycle repair equipment and showers available whenever you need them.
• No dress-code — we like to keep it casual.

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