Remote Senior Combat Designer (Unreal) — Boss Encounters

Socket.dev; Charleston (SC); On-site; USD 55,000 - 96,000; Part time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salary

Dynamic multicultural environment

Global game services provider

Progression opportunities

Job summary

Side, a global video game development and services provider, seeks a hands-on Senior Technical Combat Designer to create and refine boss encounters, enemies, and combat systems in Unreal Engine. You will own multiple combat characters and drive end-to-end implementation from concept through in-engine execution.

This remote freelance role runs for ~3–6 months, up to 40 hours/week, with overlap to the CEST team's hours. Collaboration across disciplines is essential for iteration and balance.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience designing and implementing combat for video games.
• Ownership of 2+ combat characters or equivalent systems.
• Strong understanding of animation principles and combat feel.
• Hands-on Unreal Engine experience with Blueprints/Animation Blueprints and related systems.

Responsibilities

• Build and balance bosses and enemies in Unreal Engine, owning at least two combat characters or equivalent systems.
• Design attacks end to end, including animation hookup, hitbox timing, cancel windows, hit reactions, and i-frames.
• Increase combat variety and balance through hands-on iteration.
• Apply animation principles around weight, timing, anticipation, and readability to create responsive combat.
• Author or modify animations in Maya, MotionBuilder, Blender, or similar tools and integrate into gameplay.
• Implement combat using Unreal Blueprints, Behavior Trees, Animation Blueprints, state machines, blend spaces, montages, and animation notifies.
• Use Niagara to prototype combat effects and visual feedback.
• Collaborate with engineering, animation, VFX, and design teams to iterate on gameplay.

Skills

Unreal Engine

Combat design

Blueprints

Animation principles

C++ basics

Niagara

Team collaboration

Tools

Maya

MotionBuilder

Blender

Job description

Side, a global video game development and services provider, seeks a hands-on Senior Technical Combat Designer to create and refine boss encounters, enemies, and combat systems in Unreal Engine. You will own multiple combat characters and drive end-to-end implementation from concept through in-engine execution.

This remote freelance role runs for ~3–6 months, up to 40 hours/week, with overlap to the CEST team's hours. Collaboration across disciplines is essential for iteration and balance.