Senior Audio Designer - Narrative Focus

HoYoverse; Los Angeles (CA); On-site; USD 135,000 - 175,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

100% employer-paid healthcare premiums

Generous paid time off

401K / RRSP plan

Employer-paid life and disability ins.

Team-building activities

Flexible working hours

Job summary

HoYoverse is building a game where narrative emerges through dialogue choices and emergent gameplay, and we’re seeking a senior game audio designer to craft a coherent, systemic audio experience.

You will collaborate with design, narrative and engineering to implement audio systems in Unreal Engine 5 and Wwise, guide in-house audio talent, and help define the standard for systemic narrative audio across the project.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of game audio design experience.
• Portfolio or demo reel showing systemic or non-linear audio design.
• Mastery of dynamic audio implementation in a modern game engine (Unreal Engine 5 preferred).

Responsibilities

• Co-create audio vision for narrative cohesion and implement dynamic systems in Wwise and UE5.
• Collaborate with designers across disciplines to surface how story emerges through play and propose audio solutions.
• Identify risks and keep the audio vision moving forward as design evolves.
• Partner with tools engineers and audio programmers to translate systemic narrative design into technical requirements.
• Establish and document best practices for systemic audio design with a shared team language.
• Play the game to identify stylistic inconsistencies and advocate for the audio experience across disciplines.

Skills

Game audio design

Portfolio/demo reel

Unreal Engine 5

Wwise or FMOD

Excellent communication

Tools

Unreal Engine 5

Wwise

FMOD

Job description

HoYoverse is committed to providing immersive virtual world experiences to players around the world. We have brought fans popular games including Genshin Impact, Honkai: Star Rail, Honkai Impact 3rd, Tears of Themis, and Zenless Zone Zero, as well as a wide range of entertainment content.

Community is at the heart of everything we do. We are devoted to engaging fans and fostering an enthusiastic and inclusive global community.

Pushing the boundaries of imagination, we consistently explore cutting-edge game development technologies.

In the future, we will continue to expand our content production, technology research, and publishing duties through operations in offices in Singapore, Montreal, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Seoul, and other areas.

When you apply to a position with HoYoverse, we will process your personal data. To learn more, please review our comprehensive Global Applicant and Candidate Privacy Policy.

About The Role

We are building a game where narrative is discovered through both traditional means like cutscene, and emergent gameplay elements like dialogue choices. We’re looking for someone to help craft a coherent audio story that stitches intermittent parts together to deliver a unified experience.

You will be working with gameplay, narrative, and art in order to both figure out the experience that we’re want to deliver to players, as well as the internal processes used to create this non-linear story. This requires resourcefulness, clear communication, and someone who deeply understands how games feel from the player's side.

You will partner with quest designers, technical designers, and engineers to build the audio functions and logic needed to deliver this experience. You will also work with and guide our in-house audio talent, elevating the audio experience through a mixture of your work and mentorship.

What You Will Do

• Co-create the audio vision for narrative cohesion. Craft and implement dynamic, audio systems in Wwise and UE5 to make branching gameplay feel like an authored experienced.
• Collaborate with designers across disciplines, including gameplay, systems, quest, and narrative to identify where story emerges through play. Propose audio solutions that surface and strengthen those moments.
• Help the team identify risks and keep the audio vision moving forward even when the broader design is still taking shape.
• Partner with technical personnel, including tools engineers and audio programmers. Translate the needs of systemic narrative design into clear technical requirements for our audio tools and pipelines.
• Establish and document best practices for systemic audio design, creating shared language and process across the team.
• Play the game relentlessly, and identify stylistic inconsistencies, dead zones, and poor transitions. Advocate for the audio experience across disciplines.

Required

What we're looking for:

• 5+ years of game audio design experience
• A portfolio/demo reel demonstrating systemic or non-linear audio design. Show us how your audio adapts to player choice, state changes, or emergent gameplay.
• Mastery of dynamic audio implementation in a modern game engine (Unreal Engine 5 strongly preferred).
• Expertise with Wwise or FMOD, especially for large-scale projects with multiple systems and complex routing.
• A strong personal relationship with games. You play widely, think critically about how games work, and understand how audio shapes the player's experience from the inside.
• Excellent communication skills, capable of inspiring others with a creative vision and clearly explaining technical needs to engineering partners.

Preferred (Nice-to-Haves)

• Experience on shipped branching narrative games, open-world titles, immersive sims, or games where story emerges through systems.
• Experience mentoring other audio designers or providing creative feedback.
• Familiarity with the technical pipelines and tools used in quest or narrative scripting (e.g., visual scripting, dialogue systems).

Why Join Us?

• No one on the team has done this exact thing before. You will help navigate this challenge with a team that’s eager to explore how to deliver storytelling in this form.
• You won't be handed a brief. We protect time for deep creative work and trust you to find the path forward.
• Dedicated tools engineers help to build the technical capabilities required to deliver the audio experience.
• Help define what systemic narrative audio means for our project and accumulate experience in this front for the next generation of designers on our team.

The base pay range for this position is $135,000 to $175,000 USD per year (Los Angeles only). Actual pay is based on location and may vary depending on relevant knowledge, skills, and experience from the candidate. Total compensation may include salary, company bonuses, sign-on bonuses, relocation package, and other benefits such as:

• 100% employer-paid healthcare premiums for you and your dependents
• Generous paid time off
• 401K / RRSP plan
• Employer-paid life and disability insurance
• Team-building activities throughout the year
• Flexible working hours

We are an equal opportunity employer that believes diverse backgrounds are key to bringing our concepts to life. If you're looking to play a key role in creating the best immersive virtual world experience for our users, we invite you to join our team.