Unknown Worlds is seeking a talented Senior Gameplay Designer to work on the next game in the Subnautica series. Our ideal candidate is a passionate game player and game creator. They are self directed, highly motivated and enjoy working with multidisciplinary highly collaborative teams. This role works closely with art and engineering folks in Unreal Engine 5 creating encounters and gameplay experiences in our game world.

This is a remote position on a globally distributed team.

Responsibilities

• Collaborate with design and world teams to create dynamic and exciting encounters and events for players.
• Expand our core set of gameplay building blocks as needed to support new ideas.
• Iterate on and tune game systems as needed to support new gameplay encounters.
• Quickly prototype and prove or disprove new gameplay ideas and concepts.
• Work with production and the playtest process to identify and respond to key feedback.
• Establish and maintain design documentation as needed for the project.
• Shepherd and guide designs from paper to shipping.

Qualifications

• Experience shipping at least 2 game titles in a design focused role.
• Experience implementing gameplay in Unreal 5 Engine in collaboration with engineering.
• Extensive with game design principles, game balance, pacing and player motivations.
• Experience transitioning game concepts from prototyping to pre-production and production phases.
• Deep understanding of the foundational elements of the survival game genre, with knowledge of the Subnautica series
• Self managing and self motivated; capable of taking high level ideas and executing on them with limited guidance.
• Exceptional written and verbal communication.

Preferences

• Experience working on open world games in the survival-craft genre.
• Experience doing content design as an individual contributor.
• Experience as a technical designer in Unreal Engine.
• Experience with open development or Early Access models engaging with large and active communities.
• Scripting experience (in code, proprietary tools, or visual scripting languages)