Senior Technical Level Artist

Ghost Story Games; Massachusetts; On-site; USD 125,000 - 145,000; Full time

Job summary

Ghost Story Games is seeking a Senior Technical Level Artist for Judas, reporting to the Art Director and collaborating with Narrative, Design, and Art teams. The role focuses on modular level layout, environmental storytelling, and integrating novel pipelines for dynamic visuals.

You will contribute technically and creatively, shaping spaces, lighting, and materials to support gameplay, while advancing custom workflows and tools in a studio renowned for immersive storytelling.

Qualifications

• Experience in real-time CG for games, with emphasis on environment art and level layout.
• Strong collaboration with art leadership, design, and narrative teams.
• Able to optimize visuals for performance while maintaining storytelling quality.

Responsibilities

• Collaborate with Art Director, Lead Artist, and level art teams to deliver Judas environments to high technical and creative standards.
• Develop and communicate thematic space visual identities and support related design features.
• Proactively drive visual assets and pitch improvements to leadership across the project.

Skills

Real-time CG

Environment art

Level layout

Tools

Unreal Engine 4

Job description

Ghost Story Games is a self-publishing game development studio founded by Ken Levine (Creative Director of System Shock 2, Bioshock, and Bioshock Infinite) and former Irrational Games developers. The studio’s mission is to create narrative-driven experiences rooted in immersive world building and gameplay.

The Challenge:

Ghost Story Games is seeking a talented remote Senior Technical Level Artist to join us on Judas, the highly anticipated game led by Ken Levine (System Shock 2, BioShock series). Unique in its creative vision, Judas is also built upon novel technology by which the visual world, gameplay, and story unfolds in meaningful, dynamic ways. The result is a significant and personal journey adapted to each player’s experience and offers a new approach to the art and storytelling of video games.

For the Senior Technical Level Artist role, you should be experienced in a breadth and depth of generalist real-time CG expertise, including modular level layout and scene composition, modeling, materials, and lighting. You should be passionate about telling compelling stories through environmental art, while thoughtfully crafting spaces and visuals with the needs of gameplay in mind. It is essential the Senior Technical Level Artist is fully immersed in the novel technical pipelines, world and storytelling systems of Judas. We both expect and welcome you to contribute creative and technical suggestions to elevate the technology and workflows further, while collaborating closely together with Narrative, Design, and other Art counterparts, to bring the best vision of Judas to life.

At Ghost Story Games we place the utmost importance on memorable, immersive visual storytelling, through all aspects of the game experience, and the close team collaboration necessary to realize a shared vision together. Join us and play a key role in Judas’ success!

What You’ll Take On

• You will work with the Art Director and Lead Artist and various level art teams to ensure the various thematic spaces of the world of Judas are executed to a high degree of technical and creative standards.
• With a deep immersion in the lore and purpose of the environmental spaces you will leverage your technical skillset and approach to thoughtful world building and visual storytelling. You will help span narrative-driven visual support of quests, the development of overall environmental ‘theme’ visual identities, and support key Level and System Design features that overlap the environmental design of Judas.
• You will develop a deep understanding of the Judas’ visual and level building systems: how its thematic spaces are built, organized, and triggered in game. This includes partnering with level artists and quest pods to ensure those spaces are set up correctly and functioning as intended, and collaborating with tech and QA to troubleshoot and resolve any issues.
• Serve as the key driver of all visual assets supporting spaces under your responsibility. This includes highly proactive and collaborative engagement with Art Leadership, Level and Narrative Design, Concept Art, and External Art Vendors
• As a Senior Technical Level Artist, you are expected to help uphold the high standards of aesthetic and technical quality of your own work and leverage your expertise to identify opportunities for both visual and technical quality improvements across the project and effectively pitch to project leadership

What You Bring:

• Established experience in the game industry as a Senior Artist, preferably with experience working with larger, complex productions
• Proficient art and technical experience within a real-time Game Engine (Unreal 4 is a plus).
• Experienced eye for form, line, value, rhythm, composition, and crafting deliberate visual hierarchy reads (focus direction, small-medium-large shape balance, ‘80/20 rule’)
• Familiarity with performance evaluation and optimization – working mindfully within metrics to maintain a smooth player experience
• Experience with effective team-based iteration techniques, including a thoughtful consideration of the bigger picture of the overall game experience and creative vision and an ‘order of operation’ and ‘ROI’ approach to iterative development.
• Ability to learn and understand technical tools and systems so they can be pushed to the limit to create the most visually interesting spaces

Who You Are:

• Proactive problem solver that enjoys cross-department collaboration, asks engaging questions, and can thoughtfully pitch both creative and visual ideas, as well as technical and process improvements to benefit the quality and efficiency of the project
• For the Senior role, we are especially looking for individuals with experience and mindfulness towards both individual and team efficiency, and proven ability to work on more challenging cross-functional tasks with a very high degree of ambiguity and autonom

Great To Have:

• Passion for deeply narrative driven games, particularly First Person Shooters
• Additional traditional art, lighting, or cinematography background
• Experience working effectively and collaborative with a diverse mix of internal and distributed teams

The pay range for this position in Massachusetts at the start of employment is expected to be between $124,800 and $144,680 per Year. However, base pay offered is based on market location, and may vary further depending on individualized factors for job candidates, such as job-related knowledge, skills, experience, and other objective business considerations. Subject to those same considerations, the total compensation package for employees in regular roles may also include other elements, including a bonus and/or equity awards, in addition to a full range of medical, financial, and/or other benefits, provided that temporary or intern roles will not be eligible for many of these payments or benefits. Details of participation in compensation and benefit plans (if applicable) will be provided if an employee receives an offer of employment.If hired, employee will be in an at-will position and the company reserves the right to modify base salary (as well as any other discretionary payment or compensation or benefit program) at any time, including for reasons related to individual performance, company or individual department/team performance, and market factors

As an equal opportunity employer, Ghost Story Games, LLC (“Ghost Story”) is committed to fostering and celebrating the diverse thoughts, cultures, and backgrounds of its talent, partners, and communities throughout its organization. Consistent with this commitment, Ghost Story does not discriminate or retaliate against any employee or job applicant because of their race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, sexual orientation, and gender identity), national origin, age, disability, and genetic information (including family medical history), or on the basis of any other trait protected by applicable law. If you need to report a concern or have questions regarding Ghost Story’s equal opportunity commitment, please contact [e-mail].