Level Artist

Who We Are: 

Ghost Story Games is a self-publishing game development studio founded by Ken Levine (Creative Director of System Shock 2, Bioshock, and Bioshock Infinite) and former Irrational Games developers.  The studio’s mission is to create narrative-driven experiences rooted in immersive world building and gameplay. 

The Challenge  

Ghost Story Games is seeking a talented Senior Level Artist to join us on Judas, the highly anticipated game led by Ken Levine (System Shock 2, BioShock series). Unique in its bold, creative vision, Judas is also built upon novel technology by which the visual world, gameplay, and story unfolds in meaningful, dynamic ways. The result is a significant and personal journey adapted to each player’s experience and offers a new approach to the art and storytelling of video games.

For the Senior Level Artist role, you should be passionate about telling compelling stories through environmental art, all while thoughtfully crafting spaces and visuals with the needs of gameplay in mind. And you should be excited to immerse yourself in novel technical pipelines, and willing to embrace the opportunity to learn and grow in an all-new way of crafting games. With the unique technology unpinning Judas, it is particularly essential the Senior Level Artist fully leverages the world and storytelling systems. We both expect and welcome you to contribute creative and technical suggestions to elevate it further, and work closely together with Narrative, Design, and other Art counterparts, to bring the best vision of Judas to life.

At Ghost Story Games we place the utmost importance on memorable, immersive visual storytelling, through all aspects of the game experience, and the close team collaboration necessary to realize a shared vision together. Join us and play a key role in Judas’ success!

What You’ll Take On: 

• Prototype and execute on visually stunning environmental spaces that are both well attuned to the gameplay experience and tell bold, cohesive visual stories in support of the script and overall vision of world.
• Collaborate with level design to support gameplay, keeping in mind things such as navigation, pacing, compositional sight lines, cover, verticality, and AI. 
• Serve as the key driver of all visual assets supporting spaces under your responsibility. This includes highly proactive and collaborative engagement with Art Leadership, Level and Narrative Design, Concept Art, and External Art Vendors to plan, prototype, and implement supporting assets, within an established pipeline and technical specifications.
• As a Senior Level Artist, you are also expected to keep active tabs on the performance profile of all levels under your responsibility, ensuring visual content is authored efficiently and fits within established memory and performance budgets. For the Senior role we expect active collaboration beyond just your own content responsibilities, including working cross-functionally with other content disciplines to analyze the overall performance profile of spaces and strategize together on any balanced plans for optimization.

What You Bring:  

• Established experience in the game industry as a mid-level to senior Level Artist, preferably with experience working with larger, complex productions.
• Proficient art and technical experience within a real-time Game Engine (Unreal 4 is a plus).
• Experienced eye for form, line, value, rhythm, composition, and crafting deliberate visual hierarchy reads (focus direction, small-medium-large shape balance, ‘80/20 rule’).
• Familiarity with performance evaluation and optimization – working mindfully within metrics to maintain a smooth player experience.
• Experience with effective team-based iteration techniques, including a thoughtful consideration of the bigger picture of the overall game experience and creative vision and a ‘order of operation’ and ‘ROI’ approach to iterative development.
• Ability to learn and understand technical tools and systems so they can be pushed to the limit to create the most visually interesting spaces

Who You Are:

• Proactive problem solver that enjoys cross-department collaboration, asks engaging questions, and can thoughtfully pitch both creative and visual ideas, as well as technical and process improvements to benefit the quality and efficiency of the project.
• For the Senior role, we are especially looking for individuals with experience and mindfulness towards both individual and team efficiency, and proven ability to work on more challenging cross functional tasks of a higher degree of ambiguity, with a great degree of autonomy. Knowing what questions to answer in what order, when you should seek advice and help from others, and when you can take the initiative to the benefit of the overall team and project is key for the Senior level expectations.
• Additionally, for the Senior role we expect a significant, positive force-multiplication contribution. We highly value individuals that enjoy supporting and mentoring junior artists on the team and bring with them an excitement and willingness to learn and master new technical processes and pipelines for level art creation. Over time we expect you to become a valuable resource that other artists and designers seek out for advice, and through positive engagement you contribute to a supportive and collaborative studio culture.

Great to Have:  

• Passion for deeply narrative driven games, particularly First Person Shooters.
• Additional traditional art or architecture background
• Experience working effectively and collaborative with a diverse mix of internal and distributed teams

The pay range for this position in Massachusetts at the start of employment is expected to be between $90,200 and $133,520 per Year. However, base pay offered is based on market location, and may vary further depending on individualized factors for job candidates, such as job-related knowledge, skills, experience, and other objective business considerations. Subject to those same considerations, the total compensation package for employees in regular roles may also include other elements, including a bonus and/or equity awards, in addition to a full range of medical, financial, and/or other benefits, provided that temporary or intern roles will not be eligible for many of these payments or benefits. Details of participation in compensation and benefit plans (if applicable) will be provided if an employee receives an offer of employment. If hired, employee will be in an ~at-will position~ and the company reserves the right to modify base salary (as well as any other discretionary payment or compensation or benefit program) at any time, including for reasons related to individual performance, company or individual department/team performance, and market factors.

When Applying For This Position: 

Please watch the following GDC talk given by Ken Levine: http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1020434/Narrative

Please be aware that Ghost Story does not conduct job interviews or make job offers over third-party messaging apps such as Telegram, WhatsApp, or others. Ghost Story also does not engage in any financial exchanges during the recruitment or onboarding process, and the Ghost Story will never ask a candidate for their personal or financial information over an app or other unofficial chat channel. Any attempt to do so may be the result of a scam or phishing exercise. Ghost Story’s in-house recruitment team will only contact individuals through their official Ghost Story email addresses (i.e., via a ghoststorygames.com email domain). If you need to report an issue or otherwise have questions, please contact Careers@ghoststorygames.com 

As an equal opportunity employer, Ghost Story Games, LLC (“Ghost Story”) is committed to fostering and celebrating the diverse thoughts, cultures, and backgrounds of its talent, partners, and communities throughout its organization. Consistent with this commitment, Ghost Story does not discriminate or retaliate against any employee or job applicant because of their race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, sexual orientation, and gender identity), national origin, age, disability, and genetic information (including family medical history), or on the basis of any other trait protected by applicable law. If you need to report a concern or have questions regarding Ghost Story’s equal opportunity commitment, please contact Careers@ghoststorygames.com.