Principal Game Designer; Genre Specialist

Position: Principal Game Designer (Genre Specialist)
Business Unit
Tencent Games was established in 2003. We are a leading global platform for game development, operations and publishing, and the largest online game community in China.

Tencent Games has developed and operated over 140 games. We provide cross‑platform interactive entertainment experience for more than 800 million users in over 200 countries and regions around the world. Honor of Kings, PUBG MOBILE, and League of Legends, are some of our most popular titles around the world.

Meanwhile, we actively promote the development of esports industry, work with global partners to build an open, collaborative and symbiotic industrial ecology, and create high‑quality digital life experiences for players.

About The Hiring Team
Game Research Center (GRC) is a department focusing on game industry study, game analysis, game design research, data analysis and game development supporting. We’re one of the world’s leading research facility in game industry, building a global knowledge tank to help our teams make better decisions. We’re looking for innovative and passionate team members who love all kinds of games and have insight about the challenging global market.

What

The Role Entails
This role sits within the  GRC (Game Research Center)  team. Its core mission is to bring in a highly authoritative game design leader with extensive hands‑on development experience across  global shooter, casual competitive and RPG game genres . We are looking for a true genre expert who can help define the  next generation of gameplay standards . This individual will provide Tencent’s overseas portfolio with stronger strategic direction on product design trends, solve critical design challenges in active development, and identify opportunities for the next evergreen game franchise.

Key Responsibilities

Gameplay and Systems Design

Define and refine best‑in‑class minute‑to‑minute gameplay experience, including controls, movement, and player feedback across visual, audio, and haptic layers.

Build scalable and deeply engaging gameplay systems, including combat systems, character control, level interaction, mission flow, progression systems, and long‑term engagement loops.

Lead the design evaluation and strategic improvement of core gameplay pillars, including 3C, combat/system design, level design, mission structure, world interaction, and player progression.

Ensure systems are accessible, strategically deep, highly replayable, and fun over the long term.

Genre Expertise and Design Benchmarking

Analyze leading global games in global shooter, casual competitive and RPG game genres, and turn those insights into reusable design frameworks.

Set high‑quality design benchmarks for core projects, including 3C, system interaction, and world exploration pacing.

Project Support and Evaluation

Work directly with project teams to solve critical design problems, especially in GaaS systems, gameplay innovation, and economy balance.

Review prototypes and milestone builds to ensure projects are both fun and distinctive in the global market.

Provide hands‑on design consultation to teams in development, with particular focus on high‑priority shooter‑related challenges, while also supporting selected opportunities in innovative casual and RPG projects.

Help identify genre opportunities, product risks, and improvement areas early through expert review, structured feedback, and design modeling.

Industry Leadership

Represent the company through thought leadership at industry events such as GDC, Devcom, and similar conferences.

Use your industry reputation and network to connect with top global design talent and strengthen Tencent’s influence in game development.

Who We Look For

10+ years of experience in game design, with at least the past 5 years spent as a lead designer or core systems owner on globally recognized large‑scale game projects.

Proven success in at least two of the following areas:

Shooter games, with strong practical experience in level design, 3C, combat design, and/or gameplay systems design

Casual competitive games, especially products involving creative sandbox, party royale, social‑creative, or AI‑enhanced gameplay experiences

RPG games, with…