Principal Combat Designer
Combat Designers are responsible for creating and implementing responsive, engaging combat systems that align with the game's core mechanics and player experience. They design and refine melee, ranged, and archetype-specific abilities, as well as enemy AI, encounters, and boss mechanics using tools like Unreal Engine and visual scripting. Their work spans the full feature lifecycle from concept, prototyping, and playtesting through to final implementation ensuring systems are fun, balanced, and technically sound. Combat Designers support workflows involving combat logic, enemy behavior trees, and player progression systems, frequently iterating based on playtest feedback. They collaborate closely with teams across animation, engineering, level design, audio, VFX, and QA to ensure combat elements are cohesive and well-integrated within the broader game experience.
- Strong skills in designing ranged and projectile systems for player use
- Track record of crafting immersive gameplay mechanics, systems, and experiences from concept to prototype
- Expert combat design instincts, including a superb grasp of timing and instincts of what feels right for the player
- Experience with Unreal, in particular Behavior Trees, and Animation Sequence Editor
- Deep technical understanding of game engine pipelines, technologies, limitations, editing tool conventions, scripting, troubleshooting, and debugging
- Excel VBA or scripting experience
- Experience tuning enemy AI systems for responsive combat encounters
Software & Tools
Animation Sequence Editor
Excel (VBA)
Scripting Tools
Technical Areas
Advanced combat systems
ranged/projectile and melee integration
AI combat behaviour
playtesting leadership
documentation and process creation
Interpersonal Skills
Communication
Cross-disciplinary collaboration
Leadership
Feedback analysis