Senior Gameplay Animator: Master of Combat & Motion

Activision Blizzard, Inc.; Santa Monica (CA); On-site; USD 137,000 - 253,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical benefits

Dental benefits

Vision benefits

401(k) with match

Tuition reimbursement

Job summary

Activision Blizzard, Inc. seeks a Principal Gameplay Animator for Elsewhere Entertainment to shape animation vision for a new IP.

You will own high-quality gameplay animation, focusing on responsive combat and readable timing, while collaborating with design, engineering, art, audio, and narrative teams to elevate the player experience. The role requires senior-level animation expertise, deep mocap workflows, and a strong blend of technical and creative leadership.

Qualifications

• Significant gameplay animation experience, including a senior or principal-level contribution to one or more shipped titles.
• Strong combat animation skills, with experience creating impactful, responsive player and enemy combat behaviours.
• A deep understanding of combat readability, timing, anticipation, hit reactions, attack cycles, locomotion and player control.
• Experience working in game engines and contributing to animation systems and implementation.
• Strong knowledge of motion-capture pipelines, including editing, cleanup and blending mocap with keyframe animation.
• Exceptional animation fundamentals across human and creature movement, including timing, weight, balance and physicality.

Responsibilities

• Owning and driving the quality bar for gameplay animation, with a particular focus on responsive, readable and satisfying combat.
• Creating and refining high-quality character animations using strong animation fundamentals, gameplay principles and motion-capture data.
• Shaping animation approaches that support combat design, player expression, enemy behaviours, traversal and moment-to-moment gameplay.
• Partnering closely with Design, Engineering, Art, Audio and Narrative to ensure animation enhances the overall player experience.
• Applying deep knowledge of game design mechanics, 3Cs (character, camera and controls), AI behaviour, camera animation and narrative context.
• Contributing to animation systems, state machines, blending, transitions and in-engine implementation to achieve fluid, responsive gameplay.
• Providing clear creative direction, feedback and mentorship to help raise the craft and capability of the animation team.
• Identifying opportunities to improve tools, workflows and pipelines, helping the team work more effectively at scale.
• Solving complex technical and creative challenges while balancing quality, performance and production needs.

Skills

Gameplay animation

Combat animation

Animation systems

Mocap pipelines

Team collaboration

Mentorship

Tools

Maya

Unreal Engine

Job description

Activision Blizzard, Inc. seeks a Principal Gameplay Animator for Elsewhere Entertainment to shape animation vision for a new IP.

You will own high-quality gameplay animation, focusing on responsive combat and readable timing, while collaborating with design, engineering, art, audio, and narrative teams to elevate the player experience. The role requires senior-level animation expertise, deep mocap workflows, and a strong blend of technical and creative leadership.