Lead Artist Remote

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.

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.

Ghost Story Games is seeking a talented Lead Level Artist to join us on Judas, the highly anticipated game led by Ken Levine (System Shock 2, Bio Shock series).

You will work with the Art Director and Creative Director to define and refine the various thematic spaces of the world of Judas. With a deep immersion in the lore, scripts, and purpose of the environmental spaces you will leverage your skillset and approach to thoughtful world building and visual storytelling and guide the team of level artists, concept artists, and 3d artists to deliver a richly immersive and memorable player experience.

You will 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, including dynamic traversal systems, player pickups, and dynamic environmental systems and interactions.

You will develop a deep understanding of the Mayflower’s visual 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.

You will prototype and execute on visually stunning environments that enhance gameplay and reinforce the game’s narrative vision. You will work closely with Level Design to support navigation, pacing, sightlines, cover, and verticality, ensuring each space feels both functional and grounded.

You will 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 to plan, prototype, and implement supporting assets, within an established pipeline and technical specifications.

As the Lead Level Artist, you are also expected to keep active tabs on the performance profile and other technical compliance requirements of all levels under your responsibility, ensuring visual content is authored efficiently and fits within established memory and performance budgets. For the Lead role we expect active collaboration beyond just your own content responsibilities, including working cross-functionally with other content disciplines to analyze the overall performance profile of spaces and strategize together on any balanced plans for optimization.

Established experience in the game industry as a Lead 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

You are a thoughtful, passionate visual storyteller. You are adept at…