Lead Game Designer - Hybrid Role (Phasmophobia)

Kinetic Games Limited; Southampton; Hybrid; GBP 57,000 - 65,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Hybrid & Flextime Working

Annual Bonus

30 days Holiday in Total

Relocation Package (within the UK only

Southampton Football Club Tickets

Training & Development Budget

Vitality Health Insurance

Aviva Life Insurance

Employee of the Month Vouchers

Personal Wellbeing Allowance

Recruitment Referral Scheme

Job summary

Kinetic Games Limited in Southampton, UK, invites a Lead Game Designer to influence content updates for Phasmophobia. You’ll translate creative vision into cohesive gameplay, own design disciplines, and guide other designers in a fast-paced live game environment.

The role blends hands-on design with leadership, coordinating with production and programmers to refine features and maintain quality. Hybrid work with visa restrictions noted.

Qualifications

• Expert understanding of Phasmophobia and a passion for horror and puzzle games.
• Previous experience as a Lead Game Designer or equivalent within a large development team.
• At least 1 shipped PC or Console game as a credited Game Designer, Senior Game Designer, Lead Game Designer, Game Director or equivalent.
• Significant professional game design experience with the complete feature development process.
• Experience leading, mentoring, or providing design direction to other designers.
• Strong experience designing multiplayer, horror, survival, or atmospheric gameplay systems.
• Excellent communication skills and the ability to provide clear design direction across multiple disciplines.
• Strong understanding of gameplay systems, balancing, progression, pacing and player experience.
• Strong experience writing, reviewing, and maintaining design documentation.
• Strong decision-making and problem-solving skills, with the confidence to make design decisions.
• A collaborative mindset and confidence working closely with discipline leads, production, and senior stakeholders.
• Eligibility to work in the UK.

Responsibilities

• Work closely with the Game Director to translate the creative direction into detailed gameplay features, mechanics, systems, and content.
• Lead the game design discipline, providing direction, support, and feedback to other designers.
• Take ownership of the overall quality, consistency, and clarity of game design across updates.
• Own key gameplay features and systems from initial concept through implementation, iteration, balancing, and release.
• Review and provide feedback on design work to ensure it aligns with the game's creative direction and established design principles.
• Establish and maintain clear design processes, documentation standards, and best practices across the design team.
• Create and oversee clear, detailed, and actionable design documentation for cross-discipline teams.
• Break high‑level creative direction into actionable design work and help distribute design ownership across the team.
• Mentor and support designers, helping them develop their design skills, decision‑making, ownership, and understanding of Phasmophobia.
• Identify gameplay, scope, UX, and implementation risks early and work proactively with stakeholders to resolve them.
• Collaborate closely with production to ensure design work is appropriately prioritised, scoped, and aligned with project milestones.
• Work closely with programmers to improve designer workflows, tools, pipelines, and the ability for designers to implement and iterate on content independently.
• Confidently use Unity Editor tools to tune gameplay, implement content, prototype ideas, and iterate on features hands‑on.
• Facilitate design reviews and help resolve design problems or conflicting requirements between disciplines.
• Gather and interpret internal, community, and gameplay feedback to improve player experience, gameplay readability, balance, and feature quality.
• Play and test new updates regularly, ensuring the design team has a strong understanding of the game as a whole and that features meet gameplay, usability, and quality expectations.
• Help identify opportunities to improve existing gameplay systems and the overall player experience

Skills

Phasmophobia expert

Horror games passion

Puzzle games interest

Lead design experience

Multiplayer design

Communication skills

Design direction

Tools

Unity Editor

Job description

Kinetic Games Limited in Southampton, UK, invites a Lead Game Designer to influence content updates for Phasmophobia. You’ll translate creative vision into cohesive gameplay, own design disciplines, and guide other designers in a fast-paced live game environment.

The role blends hands-on design with leadership, coordinating with production and programmers to refine features and maintain quality. Hybrid work with visa restrictions noted.