Associate Art Director - RuneScape Dragonwilds

Jagex; Cambridge; Hybrid; GBP 70,000 - 90,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Private Healthcare

Discretionary annual performance bonus

Minimum 6% Pension contributions

Life Insurance

Enhanced family leave policies

Flexible working hours

25 days annual leave + bank holidays

Job summary

Jagex seeks an experienced Associate Art Director to uphold the quality bar across art disciplines for RuneScape: DragonWilds, built in Unreal Engine 5. You will lead, mentor, and align the art team with the game’s artistic vision while maintaining modern development pipelines.

You will work with leadership to define a coherent visual direction, guide asset creation, and drive best practices across outsourcing and in-house teams to deliver assets on time and to standard.

Qualifications

• Proven experience leading game art across multiple disciplines.
• End-to-end game development experience from concept to live продукт.
• Ability to communicate and propagate an artistic vision to teams and stakeholders.
• Experience growing, developing and managing multidisciplinary art and animation teams on live products.
• Documenting and presenting industry best practices to art teams and critiquing assets/workflows.
• Hands-on mentoring in at least two of: environment art, character art, concept art, technical art, UI, VFX or animation.

Responsibilities

• Collaborate with the Art Director and Executive Producer to establish an artistic vision that supports the game design, product direction and marketing strategy.
• Own the quality bar for all assets across internal and external artists, ensuring consistency with the game’s vision.
• Contribute to style guide creation and documentation, and communicate the vision to the art team and broader development team.
• Set up and run feedback sessions for internal and external artists, providing clear, actionable feedback to lift quality.
• Define and drive industry best practices and pipelines across all game art content creation and outsourcing.
• Work with production to plan and schedule art team delivery across all game assets.

Skills

Art direction

Unreal Engine 5

Mentoring

Team leadership

Communication

Style guides

Asset pipelines

Tools

Unreal Engine 5

Job description

Location: Cambridge, UK – This position offers flexible working options, including predominantly remote work. Applicants are ideallybased (or willing to relocate) within a comfortable commuting distance of our office to attend onsite as required.

Are you an experienced game art leader who can hold the quality bar across multiple art disciplines?

As Associate Art Director on RuneScape: DragonWilds, our open world survival crafting game built in Unreal Engine 5, you will assist in setting art direction and be accountable for the quality of the art team’s internal and external assets, ensuring they reach the highest standard and fully support the game’s artistic vision. You will be the gatekeeper of the game’s quality bar across all assets.

You will work closely with and learn from the game’s leadership to establish and maintain a coherent, consistent vision across the game, providing direct leadership and actionable visual guidance to the art team while working with your lead artists to keep modern, efficient development pipelines delivering assets on time and to standard.

What you’ll be doing:

• Collaborate with the Art Director and Executive Producer to establish an artistic vision that supports the game design, product direction and marketing strategy.
• Own the quality bar for all assets across internal and external artists, so everything that ships holds to the same standard and supports the game’s vision.
• Contribute heavily to style guide creation and documentation, communicating the vision clearly to the art team and the wider development team.
• Set up and run feedback sessions for internal and external artists, giving clear, actionable feedback that lifts the quality of what gets delivered.
• Define and drive industry best practice and pipelines across all areas of game art content creation, including outsourcing, for smooth and consistent delivery to the agreed standard.
• Work with production to effectively plan and schedule art team delivery across all game assets.

What we’re looking for:

• A portfolio demonstrating art direction capability, including style or production guides, paint-overs and similar.
• Extensive end-to-end game development experience, from concept and production through to live game on PC or console.
• Proven ability to communicate and propagate an artistic vision to teams, stakeholders and externally as required.
• Competent with strategies for growing, developing and managing multidisciplinary art and animation teams on a live product.
• Comfortable documenting and presenting current industry best practice to art and animation teams, and critiquing problematic assets and workflows.
• Practical, hands-on mentoring capability in at least two of the following: environment art, character art, concept art, technical art, UI, VFX or animation, alongside working knowledge of modern game development workflows across all major artistic disciplines.
• A solid understanding of art fundamentals: anatomy, composition, lighting and value, form and function, and perspective.

What we offer:

When you join Jagex you can look forward to a generous Perks & Benefits package including:

• Private Healthcare, including Dental Plan.
• Discretionary annual performance bonus.
• Minimum 6% Pension contributions.
• Life Insurance.
• Enhanced family leave policies from day 1.
• Flexible working hours.
• 25 days annual leave + Bank holidays & the option to buy/sell holidays + so much more!

Inclusion & Accessibility Statement

We are committed to providing equal opportunities and creating an environment where everyone can thrive. We welcome applications from all backgrounds, and we recruit, develop, and promote based on merit and ability.

If you require any reasonable adjustments to support you during the recruitment process, please let us know when you’re invited to interview.

Right to Work Statement

This role is only open to applicants who have the permanent right to work in the UK. We are unable to provide or take over visa sponsorship for this position, either now or in the future. Applicants must therefore be able to demonstrate their ongoing eligibility to work in the UK without the need for employer sponsorship.

About Jagex

We are Jagex: The RuneScape Company. Home to one of gaming’s most enduring success stories. We create deep, community-powered games with worlds that evolve, inspire, and endure. Our flagship MMORPG franchise, RuneScape, has welcomed over 300 million player accounts, inspiring generations of players across PC and mobile for 25 years.

As we begin our 26th year, we are accelerating our strategy to expand RuneScape into a broader ecosystem of forever games and connected experiences, grounded in a renewed commitment to integrity and fair play. This includes the reduction of monetisation mechanics, as well as the launch of RuneScape: DragonWilds into Steam Early Access in 2025, representing a major step in building a multi-genre future for the RuneScape universe. We remain focused on building enduring worlds, empowering player-led innovation, and laying the foundations for the boldest era in RuneScape’s history. For more information, visit https://www.jagex.com/.

Headquartered in Cambridge, United Kingdom, we are home to passionate creators, storytellers, engineers, and even a few dreamers, all united by a single mission to shape the future of online worlds and empower players to make them their own. We’re looking for people to join us who share our ambitions and values. We foster an inclusive workplace built on trust, autonomy, and a shared passion for creating experiences that inspire our communities.
Our values guide everything we do: We Embrace Fellowship by collaborating and sharing openly. We Hone our Craft by always learning and improving; We Honour our Vows by being honest and transparent; We are our Customers’ Heroes by striving to understand our team & player needs, and We Seize The Day by making the most of every opportunity.