Senior Game Designer needed at Avalanche Studios , 2026

Festybay; Stockholms kommun; Hybrid; SEK 50,000 - 65,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Generous Paid Leave

Occupational Pension

Parental & Sick Leave

Annual Wellness Grant

Job summary

Festybay is looking for a Senior Game Designer to take ownership of gameplay features within a hybrid work model. This role requires proven experience designing for open-world games and delivering polished gameplay elements.

The ideal candidate will possess strong communication skills, work well with cross-disciplinary teams, and be adept at analyzing player feedback. The estimated monthly salary ranges from 50,000 SEK to 65,000 SEK gross.

Qualifications

• Profound understanding of systems design and player motivation.
• Hands-on experience in designing mechanics for open-world games.
• Proven ability to deliver polished gameplay features.

Responsibilities

• Own major gameplay features from ideation to release.
• Collaborate with a cross-functional team to ensure alignment.
• Analyze player sentiment and market trends to refine game design.

Skills

Systems & Economic Literacy

Open-World Proven Track Record

Shipped Production Experience

Communication & Presentation Confidence

Job description

Game Designer Job Overview

Company Name Expansive Worlds (A division of Avalanche Studios Group)

Position Title Senior Game Designer

Assigned Franchise theHunter: Call of the Wild

Work Model Hybrid (Mandatory In-Office days: Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays)

Primary Location Stockholm, Sweden (Södermalm District)

Estimated Base Salary Range 50,000 SEK – 65,000 SEK per month (Gross/Pre-tax)

Estimated Annual Value 600,000 SEK – 780,000 SEK base

Relocation Assistance Not Available (Candidates must manage local housing and possess an existing legal right to work in Sweden)

Language Requirement Full professional proficiency in written and spoken English

Confidentiality Level Strict Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) required upon advancing past initial screening.

Core Responsibilities: What You’ll Do

As a Senior Game Designer on a mature, highly successful live-service title, your responsibilities span the entire lifecycle of feature development—from early conceptualization and math-heavy modeling to post-launch optimization based on community sentiment.

1. End-to-End Feature Ownership

• Ideation to Release: You will take full, autonomous ownership of major gameplay features, progression loops, and systemic updates. You will guide these initiatives safely through the entire production pipeline, ensuring they launch on schedule and at a high standard of quality.
• Design Documentation: Create thorough, viable, and highly readable design solutions on paper. Your documentation must clearly communicate design intent, system architecture, edge cases, user experience flows, and economic balance variables to cross-disciplinary teams.
• Gameplay Iteration: Actively prototype and iterate on gameplay mechanics inside the engine. You will use firsthand testing, data telemetry, and qualitative feedback to continually refine features until they achieve optimal player engagement and mechanical responsiveness.

2. Multi-Disciplinary Collaboration

• Cross-Functional Alignment: Work closely with a dedicated squad of designers, artists, animators, gameplay programmers, audio designers, and the Quality Assurance (QA) team. You will serve as the central hub for your features, ensuring all disciplines are aligned on execution goals and technical constraints.
• Workflow Integration: Partner with technical directors and programmers to integrate complex systems smoothly into our proprietary engine technology, proactively resolving design bottlenecks before they impact production velocity.

3. Community Engagement & Market Analysis

• Player Sentiment Analysis: Actively connect with our passionate player base. You will analyze community forums, gameplay videos, and feedback channels to identify evolving player needs, pain points, and emerging trends.
• Data-Driven Adjustments: Translate community feedback into actionable design iterations, ensuring the game evolves in harmony with its core fanbase while remaining welcoming to new players.
• Market Competitive Analysis: Continuously study external market trends and reference system models in other successful titles (such as hunting simulations, extraction shooters, survival games, and RPG economies) to propose innovative mechanics that push theHunter into exciting new territory.

Candidate Profile: Who You Are

Required Experience & Technical Capabilities as Game Designer

• Systems & Economic Literacy: You possess a profound understanding of systems design, meta-game progression loops, player motivation vectors, and virtual game economies. You excel at balancing complex variables to ensure long-term engagement.
• Open-World Proven Track Record: You have hands‑on experience designing mechanics specifically tailored for open-world games, demonstrating an understanding of how massive environments affect pacing, player routing, and systemic gameplay events.
• Shipped Production Experience: You have a proven ability to deliver highly polished, stable, and releasable gameplay features within a professional production environment.
• Communication & Presentation Confidence: You are highly expressive and confident when presenting complex design concepts, system frameworks, and creative pitches to both your immediate development team and senior stakeholders.

Advantageous Skills (Pluses)

• Shooter & Ballistics Design: Direct experience designing weapon handling, shooting mechanics, projectile trajectory, or complex ballistic systems is highly beneficial and will directly elevate your impact on theHunter franchise.
• Live-Service Operations: Past experience supporting an active live-service game with continuous content drops, seasonal updates, and balancing patches is a significant asset.

The estimated monthly salary for this senior-level permanent role ranges from 50,000 SEK to 65,000 SEK gross (pre-tax). Final compensation structures are determined on an individual basis, reflecting the candidate’s depth of systemic expertise, industry tenure, and specific background with relevant mechanics. Game Designer.

Standard Swedish Employment Protections

• Generous Paid Leave: A standard allocation of 25 to 30 days of paid vacation per year, allowing for excellent work‑life balance.
• Occupational Pension (Tjänstepension): Consistent monthly studio contributions toward your long-term retirement fund.
• Parental & Sick Leave: Highly supportive financial cushions and legal protections for family planning and unexpected medical leave.
• Annual Wellness Grant (Friskvårdsbidrag): A dedicated financial allowance provided each year to reimburse fitness memberships, sports activities, or general health services.

Commitment to Diversity & Non-Linear Backgrounds

A Direct Note on Qualifications

Global industry research reveals that individuals belonging to under‑represented demographics often hesitate to apply for open positions unless they perfectly fulfill every single listed requirement.

At Avalanche Studios Group and Expansive Worlds, we explicitly reject this rigid framework. We place a much higher value on your core drive to learn, your analytical problem‑solving abilities, and your genuine passion for creating immersive systemic designs than we do on a perfectly itemized resume. If you are excited by the challenge of evolving a massive open-world franchise, we strongly encourage you to submit your application—even if you do not tick every single box in our description. Our strength lies in our diverse perspectives.