Art Lead

Longdue Games; United States; Remote; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Stock options

Remote-first studio

Job summary

Longdue Games in the United States is seeking an experienced Art Director to lead visual development for Hopetown, a narrative-driven RPG.

You will guide the art team across 2D and 3D workflows, align with narrative goals, and translate concepts into a cohesive, evocative world.

This remote-first studio offers creative freedom and a path to shape a unique psychological RPG.

Qualifications

• Proven experience as an Art Director or Senior Artist in games.
• Experience hiring, mentoring, and building an art team.
• Ability to define and articulate a visual style and communicate it to stakeholders.
• Experience managing artistic workflows and production timelines.
• Ability to collaborate with other disciplines to maintain a unified vision.

Responsibilities

• Lead and refine the game’s visual direction, building on the established foundations.
• Lead and support the art team with direction and mentorship.
• Maintain a cohesive visual identity across production.
• Make art serve the narrative and player experience with collaboration.
• Turn artistic ambition into achievable production plans.
• Resolve creative and technical challenges with production and engineering.
• Provide decisive creative feedback using paintovers and references.
• Foster an open, ambitious creative culture.

Skills

Art Direction

Team Leadership

Mentoring

Visual Style

2.5D Art Pipeline

Tools

2D/3D art pipelines

Job description

About the Game

Hopetown is a new narrative-first RPG inspired by Disco Elysium, being built by some of the team that worked on Disco Elysium, including Martin Luiga (founder of the ZA/UM Cultural Movement, writer of several characters on Disco Elysium, writer of the first short story in the Disco Elysium world), and Lenval Brown (narrator of Disco Elysium).

We are currently moving into early production, building out the foundational systems, characters, and mechanics that will define the experience. With your help, we can transform Hopetown from a great cRPG into an unforgettable one — a living, breathing universe of stories, surprises, and challenges.

About us

Longdue is a studio founded to create rich, emotional, story-first games that challenge players’ expectations. We’re a remote team of writers, artists, designers, and engineers, bringing together talent from across the industry to push the boundaries of narrative-driven RPGs.

We are still early in production, meaning new team members will have a real, tangible impact on the world we are building. We believe that extraordinary games can come from small, focused teams that value creativity, openness, and care over convention.

The role

We’re seeking an Art Director to lead the next stage of visual development on Longdue’s narrative-heavy RPG. With strong artistic foundations and a small multidisciplinary art team already in place, you’ll build on the game’s established visual direction, deepen its expression, and guide its execution throughout production.

This is an opportunity to bring creative leadership to a world already taking shape. You’ll balance artistic ambition with the practical demands of making a game, helping the team translate concepts into a cohesive, evocative world. We’re looking for someone with strong visual judgment, experience across artistic disciplines, and the ability to inspire, support, and challenge a talented team.

Responsibilities

• Lead and refine the game’s visual direction. Build on the established artistic foundations, refining the visual language and guiding its consistent execution as the game moves through production.
• Lead and support the art team. Provide clear direction, constructive feedback, and mentorship across concept, 3D, environment art, and other disciplines. Identify skill gaps and help grow the team where needed.
• Maintain a cohesive visual identity throughout production. Set clear quality standards and guide work from initial concepts through to its final appearance in the game, ensuring individual assets contribute to a coherent whole.
• Make the art serve the narrative and player experience. Collaborate closely with narrative, writing, and design teams to express the game’s themes, characters, and atmosphere through its environments and visual storytelling.
• Turn artistic ambition into achievable production plans. Work with production and discipline leads to set priorities, scope work, allocate resources, and manage iteration, balancing visual quality with schedules and team capacity.
• Resolve creative and technical challenges. Partner with technical art and engineering to ensure the visual direction translates effectively into the game, accounting for performance, tools, and workflow constraints.
• Provide clear, decisive creative feedback. Use paintovers, references, visual briefs, and reviews to communicate intent, explore solutions where needed, and help the team move confidently towards finished work.
• Foster an open, ambitious creative culture. Encourage experimentation and constructive discussion while giving the team the clarity and support needed to deliver its best work.

Must-have

• Proven experience as an Art Director or Senior Artist in the video game industry, with experience across 3D and 2D, ideally in the ‘2.5D’ art pipeline at Hopetown, and a portfolio that showcases your ability to create and maintain a visual style across a relevant type of project.
• Experience in hiring, mentoring, and building an art team from scratch, as well as managing team growth and performance.
• Strong ability to define and articulate a visual style and communicate it effectively to stakeholders and team members. You should be capable of turning abstract ideas into tangible visual elements.
• Experience managing artistic workflows, understanding content production cycles, and making key decisions that maintain quality while meeting production timelines.
• Ability to work effectively with other disciplines to ensure a unified creative vision across all aspects of the game.

Nice to have

• A deep understanding of visual trends in the gaming industry and a passion for narrative-driven games is a plus.
• Expertise in concept art, 2D modelling, UI design, or animation. While this role focuses on directing, hands-on experience in art production is highly valuable.
• A passion for visual storytelling, with the ability to use art to enhance the narrative and evoke emotions.
• Experience working in different artistic styles and a willingness to experiment and adapt to a novel visual direction.
• A genuine curiosity to learn new tools, techniques, and approaches in all aspects of game art. A willingness to explore different aspects of game development to enhance team understanding.

Creative Freedom: We foster an environment where your unique voice and vision can shape a groundbreaking RPG.

Thought-Provoking Project: Help create a game that challenges conventions, offers a deep philosophical experience, and invites players to explore not only a mysterious world but also the depths of the human psyche.

Flexible Working: We are a remote-first studio, offering you the freedom to work from wherever inspiration strikes.

Stock options in an independent studio: Share in Longdue’s long-term success and help shape the future of the studio.

Join Us: We’re here to make narrative-first, psychologically deep RPGs. If you’re passionate about storytelling, design, and pushing the boundaries of what games can be, Longdue is the place for you.