Design Director - RS4

Jagex: The RuneScape Company; Cambridge; Hybrid; GBP 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Private Healthcare

Pension contributions

Employee Assistance Programme & onsite

Life Insurance

Discretionary annual performance bonus

Enhanced family leave

Flexible working hours

25 days annual leave + bank holidays

Job summary

Jagex: The RuneScape Company is seeking an experienced Design Director for the new RuneScape MMO project. You will own the game's overall design architecture across progression, economy, content, social systems, endgame, and live operations, ensuring coherence and sustainability across a growing world.

You will lead and grow the Design team, partnering with the Creative Director, Design Leads, Production, and Engineering to deliver long-term player value.

Qualifications

• Proven track record leading large design teams on MMOs or persistent online worlds.
• Senior design leadership on at least one shipped MMO from pre-production to launch.
• Ability to translate a Creative Director's vision into an MMO design framework.
• Deep MMO systems expertise across progression, economy, content, social systems and endgame.

Responsibilities

• Translate the Creative Director's vision into a scalable MMO experience.
• Own the MMO design architecture for progression, combat, economy, content and endgame.
• Set design strategy and standards with clear principles and quality bars.
• Lead the Design team and mentor Design Leads and senior designers.
• Design for longevity, ensuring systems support years of progression and live development.
• Collaborate with Creative, Production, Engineering, UX and Analytics to ensure scalable designs.
• Use telemetry and player feedback to identify problems and iterate.

Skills

MMO design

Leadership

Design direction

Mentoring

Cross-functional collaboration

Tools

Unreal Engine

Job description

Office location: Cambridgeshire, UK - This position offers flexible working options, including predominantly remote work. However, applicants should be based (or be willing to relocate) within a comfortable commuting distance of our office to attend onsite as required.

Are you an experienced MMO design leader who knows what it takes to build a world players will want to call home for thousands of hours?

As Design Director on our newly announced MMORPG, RS4 you'll work closely with our Creative Director to turn our vision into a coherent, scalable, and sustainable MMO design for an ambitious new project in the RuneScape universe. Bringing deep, hands-on experience of building and shipping MMOs, you'll own the game's overall design architecture across progression, economy, content, social systems, endgame, and live operations, making sure every system works together as a compelling long-term player experience.

This is an exciting senior leadership opportunity to lead and grow our Design team, partnering closely with the Creative Director, Design Leads, Production, and Engineering to create a game that can be built and operated at scale, and that honours what makes RuneScape so special to millions of players.

What you'll be doing:

• Translate the Creative Director's vision and pillars into a coherent, scalable MMO experience.
• Own the MMO design architecture, defining how progression, combat, economy, content, social systems, endgame, and retention work together.
• Set the design strategy and standards, establishing design principles, frameworks, and quality bars across the project.
• Lead the Design team, guiding and mentoring Design Leads and senior designers while establishing clear ownership and decision-making.
• Design for longevity, ensuring systems and content can sustain years of player progression, engagement, and live development.
• Partner closely with Creative, Production, Engineering, UX, Analytics, and other teams to make sure designs are achievable at scale.
• Use playtesting, telemetry, and player feedback to identify problems, iterate, and evolve the experience.
• Anticipate and proactively address MMO-specific risks, including economy health, progression balance, content consumption, exploits, and technical constraints.

What we're looking for:

• A proven track-record of successful game design experience, with substantial experience on MMOs or persistent online worlds.
• Senior design leadership experience (Design Director, Lead Designer, Principal Designer, Game Director, or equivalent) on at least one shipped MMO or major persistent online title, ideally from pre-production through to launch.
• A proven ability to translate a Creative Director's vision, pillars, and player promise into a coherent MMO design framework, with strong creative partnership skills.
• Deep MMO systems expertise across character progression, itemisation, economies, combat and encounters, social systems, and endgame, and an understanding of how they interact as one ecosystem.
• Experience building or owning an MMO's content model, balancing content velocity against consumption and creating frameworks that let multiple teams build content consistently.
• Significant experience on a live MMO or persistent online game, using telemetry and community feedback to understand retention, economy health, and player behaviour.
• A strong understanding of the technical realities of MMO development, and experience working in Unreal Engine or similarly complex AAA environments.
• Proven experience leading and mentoring a sizeable multidisciplinary design organisation, with the confidence to make difficult calls and protect the core game from uncontrolled complexity.
• A passion for MMOs, a strong appreciation of what makes RuneScape distinctive, and the ability to modernise its principles without simply importing conventions from other games.

What we offer:

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

• Private Healthcare, including Dental Plan.
• Minimum 6% Pension contributions.
• Employee Assistance Programme & onsite Counselling.
• Life Insurance.
• Discretionary annual performance bonus.
• 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.

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 www.jagex.com.

Headquartered in Cambridgeshire, 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 & values - We foster an inclusive workplace built on trust, autonomy, and a shared passion for creating experiences which 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.

Join us. The next era of RuneScape - and the next chapter of Jagex: The RuneScape Company - starts now.

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.