Senior Technical Combat Designer

NEXT EPISODE is a new AAA studio led by the director and vision creator of Dying Light and the creative director of Diablo 4 and The Witcher 3. The team is developing a First-Person, Open World Action game set in an original universe combining Science Fiction with Post-Apocalypse elements, with gameplay mechanics that break genre conventions.

• Experience designing combat for FPP or TPS games
• Experience on at least one released PC or console title
• Practical knowledge of Unreal Engine
• Ability to prototype, configure, and tune gameplay using Blueprints, Data Assets, Behavior Trees, AI Perception, or similar tools
• Experience designing, implementing, or tuning enemy AI behaviors
• Experience with systems involving behaviors, perception, movement, target selection, attacks, cooldowns, and difficulty parameters
• Strong understanding of enemy design, combat AI, encounter design, combat pacing, and combat readability
• Ability to diagnose combat issues based on playtests, player observations, and data
• Ability to create documentation understandable to programmers, level designers, animators, audio, VFX, and production
• Independence and responsibility for quality in assigned areas

Nice to have:

• Experience on AAA or AA productions
• Experience designing combat for open world games
• Experience in action-adventure, survival, immersive sim, or shooter genres
• Experience with State Trees, EQS, Gameplay Ability System, or advanced AI Perception configuration
• Experience with custom AI or combat tooling
• Basic knowledge of C++ or technical awareness of implementation limitations
• Experience working in pre-production phase
• Experience analyzing telemetry or playtest data

• Designing enemies, combat archetypes, and AI roles in FPP combat
• Defining enemy behaviors: perception, movement, target selection, aggression, retreat, flanking, chasing, attacks, damage reactions, and group behaviors
• Prototyping, configuring, and tuning combat AI in Unreal Engine using Blueprints, Data Assets, Behavior Trees, AI Perception, or similar tools
• Designing encounters with Level Design including enemy composition, space, lines of sight, cover, flanks, rhythm, and escalation
• Balancing combat aspects such as TTK, damage, enemy count, attack frequency, cooldowns, survivability, distances, and AI pressure
• Analyzing playtests for combat quality: readability, dynamics, frustration, chaos, dominant strategies, pressure, and unfair deaths
• Collaborating with AI/Gameplay Programmers for implementation, debugging, and behavior evolution
• Collaborating with Animation, VFX, and Audio teams on attack timing, hit reactions, telegraphing, and threat feedback
• Creating documentation including enemy briefs, behavior specs, encounter rules, diagrams, tuning sheets, test cases, and acceptance criteria
• Ensuring combat coherence with FPP perspective, game world, and creative vision