Technical Gameplay Designer (Player Abilities and Combat)

At Gardens Interactive, we believe that games have the power to connect people and foster meaningful relationships. Our studio is dedicated to creating critically acclaimed and commercially successful live-service games through a sustainable and collaborative development process. As a Technical Gameplay Designer focused on Player Abilities and Combat, you will own player-facing gameplay features such as weapon, tool, item, and armor abilities, buffs, and modifiers that shape how players move through, interact with, and experience our world. Your work will contribute to combat, traversal, social, and other moment-to-moment gameplay systems, helping ensure our mechanics feel expressive, readable, and rewarding in a multiplayer environment. While this is not a dedicated combat designer role, experience with and an understanding of combat design is important, as many of these abilities meaningfully influence combat feel, balance, and player expression. A Day In The Life: Work in Unreal Engine, using Blueprints and other tools to design, prototype, and iterate on player abilities, such as weapons, tools, items, armors, buffs, and gameplay modifiers for an online multiplayer game. Implement and maintain gameplay features from early concept through polish in close collaboration with engineering and other technical design partners. Playtest, tune, and refine abilities that influence combat, traversal, exploration, social interactions, and player expression to support engaging and readable multiplayer experiences. You Will: Align with leadership and management on creative goals and desired outcomes. Own the design and iteration of player-facing abilities and modifiers tied to weapons, tools, items, armors, and related systems. Collaborate with cross-disciplinary partners such as engineering, animation, audio, art, and VFX to align abilities with combat, traversal, progression, social goals, and technical constraints. Balance and tune gameplay features with an understanding of multiplayer dynamics and emergent player and multiplayer behavior. Advocate for the player experience, ensuring abilities feel intuitive, expressive, and fun over time. You Bring: Passion for systemic gameplay and creating meaningful player expression through combinatoric and emergent gameplay mechanics. Senior-level experience designing gameplay mechanics, abilities, or progression features in shipped games. Technical experience working in Unreal Engine, including Blueprint scripting or gameplay systems frameworks. A solid understanding of combat design fundamentals, even if combat has not been your primary specialization. Strong collaboration and communication skills, with the ability to clearly articulate design intent and tradeoffs. Thoughtful playtesting and iteration habits, balancing creative goals with system health and player experience. Bonus Points: Experience working on multiplayer or live-service games, with an appreciation for iteration and long-term balance. Familiarity with layered gameplay mechanics such as buffs, passives, modifiers, or status effects. The Team: This role reports to the Design Manager How We Work We believe great games are built by people who care deeply about both the work and one another. Our values guide how we collaborate, solve problems, make decisions, and grow together. They're practical behaviors, not slogans, and they're part of how we hire, give feedback, and support one another every day. We're looking for teammates who are excited to: Stay curious and ask thoughtful questions. Adapt when plans change. Exercise good judgment rather than chase perfection. Care for the success of the whole team, not just their own work. Pursue ambitious goals while remaining humble enough to keep learning. Commit fully to the shared adventure we're building together. You'll Thrive Here If... You enjoy asking questions before jumping to conclusions. You adapt comfortably when priorities evolve. You balance ambition with pragmatism. You communicate thoughtfully and seek feedback. You care about helping your teammates succeed. You embrace uncertainty as part of creating something new. Please Note: Applicants must be legally authorized to work in the United States or Canada. Gardens cannot assist with work authorizations or work visas. Applicants must also be willing to work within North American time zones (EST–PST). Our Interview Process (all interviews are 1 hour video calls on Google Meet unless otherwise noted) Step 1: People Operations Introduction Step 2: Hiring Manager Interview Step 3: Panel Interview (3 - 1 Hour Sections) Step 4: Gardeners Debrief Step 5: Offer Life at Gardens Gardens is a fully distributed game studio founded by creators behind titles including Journey, What Remains of Edith Finch, Blaseball, Dustforce, Ashen, Guild Wars 2, Baldur’s Gate 3, and more. We're developing our flagship project: a multiplayer fantasy adventure inspired by the friendships, discoveries, and unforgettable stories that emerge when people explore together. We believe the best ideas come from teams with diverse experiences, perspectives, backgrounds, and ways of thinking. Every Gardener helps shape not only what we build, but how we build it. Each of us arrives by a different path, bringing unique experiences, perspectives, and ways of seeing the world. That range is part of what makes our games and our studio better than any one of us could build alone. Gardens Offers: Competitive salaries and pay transparency Stock options Medical, dental, and vision coverage (100% for individuals, 90% for dependents) Life insurance, short-term and long-term disability, and additional benefits 401(k) contributions (U.S.) / RRSP + DPSP contributions (Canada) Paid parental leave A fully distributed remote studio across North American time zones Benefits and perks listed may vary depending on the nature of your employment with Gardens and the country in which you work. Physical Requirements: This is a primarily sedentary, remote role requiring the ability to remain stationary and perform computer-based work for extended periods, including sustained use of monitors, keyboards, mice, and game controllers for a minimum of six hours per day. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable qualified individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions of the role. Gardens is committed to providing reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities. Encouragement: We believe that diverse perspectives make our team stronger and our games better. If you're excited about this role but don't meet every single qualification, we encourage you to apply anyway. Research consistently shows that talented people, particularly women, people of color, and those from historically underrepresented communities are less likely to apply unless they meet every listed requirement. We care far more about curiosity, growth, and a willingness to learn than checking every box. Scam Note: Unfortunately, scammers have impersonated Gardens Interactive by offering fake employment opportunities intended to collect financial information. Official communication from our team will always come from a @ gardens.dev email address. We will never ask for financial information during the hiring process. If you're ever unsure whether a message is legitimate, please contact us directly through LinkedIn or [email protected]