Senior Facial Animator - Contract

Description

Playground Games is looking for a Senior Facial Animator to join our Fable team on a contract basis. 

About us: 

As a first-party Xbox Game Studio, we are passionate about making genre-defining games that are accessible, beautiful, and, most of all, fun. We are excited to be rebooting the much-loved Fable franchise and are expanding our diverse team to create a new classic in the action RPG genre. 

About the role: 

As a Senior Facial Animator, you will work with the cinematics team to deliver top-tier cutscenes and bespoke facial animation content. You will have the opportunity to contribute creatively to cutscenes from previz to final polish, enhance world-building through cinematic content, and take ownership of facial animation in cinematic development. 

Our ideal candidate is an expert facial animator who is passionate about their craft, skilled in visual storytelling, conveying emotion through performance, and adept in creating realistic motion capture and hand key animations. A proven track record in these areas is essential. 

 This is a contract role based at our state-of-the-art facilities in Royal Leamington Spa, with a hybrid work model in place. Relocation assistance is available if required.    

What you’ll do: 

• Capture, solve, retarget, and polish facial content for cutscenes, ensuring a high-quality and accurate representation of emotions and dialogue.  
• Quickly iterate on layout and previsualization to enhance cinematic delivery and narrative impact.  
• Collaborate with the Lead, Director, and cinematic team to refine performances and align with the project's vision.  
• Implement cinematics into our proprietary engine, ensuring seamless integration with gameplay and overall flow. 

What you’ll bring: 

• Impressive animation portfolio showcasing high-quality, realistic facial animations across multiple projects, ideally from AAA titles. A link to the portfolio website or an attachment with your CV is acceptable.  
• Five or more years of animation experience, with a proven track record in at least two published titles.  
• Understanding of FACS or facial muscles and their application in conveying realistic emotions. Proficiency in motion capture cleanup and related technologies.  
• Strong passion for video games and a genuine interest in the gaming industry.  
• Experience in film, layout, cinematography, editing, or implementing animations in game engines is highly desirable. 

This is a fantastic opportunity to make a world-class game with an established, talented, and collaborative team at one of the industry’s most exciting first-party game studios. Playground Games is proud to be an equal opportunity employer, we believe that diversity and inclusion fuels creativity.  We are dedicated to creating a safe, comfortable and welcoming working environment.

We strive to build an inclusive culture that encourages, supports and celebrates the diverse voices of our team members.  It drives our innovation and connects us closer to our players.  We are committed to equity, diversity, and inclusion across age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation.  

At Playground Games we recognise the importance of self-development, career progression, well-being and retention of our colleagues. We celebrate difference and welcome everyone to join us and to be themselves at work. 

If you require any reasonable accommodation to apply for this position, please contact us on recruitment@playground-games.com