Level Designer

Studio Wildcard•Bellevue, WA

1d•$85,000 - $100,000•Remote

About The Position

Studio Wildcard, creators of the smash indie hit ARK: Survival Evolved, was founded in 2014 by industry veterans Jeremy Stieglitz and Jesse Rapczak. ARK is the most successful Steam Early Access and Xbox Game Preview title ever and continues to break industry records on consoles and PC. We are looking for a capable Level Designer to fill a remote role to help support our studio’s next endeavor. As a Level Designer, you will create expansive worlds, engaging encounters, and immersive gameplay zones inspired by survival, exploration, and PvP/PvE mechanics found in ARK-style gameplay. You’ll collaborate closely with environment artists, gameplay programmers, and world builders to craft memorable player experiences. The ideal candidate understands open-world pacing, traversal, base-building environments, biome diversity, and emergent gameplay systems.

Requirements

Professional or indie experience designing levels in Unreal Engine 5
Strong understanding of open-world survival gameplay design
Experience creating large environments with meaningful player flow
Proficiency with Unreal Engine Blueprints
Knowledge of terrain tools, foliage systems, lighting, and world composition
Understanding of encounter pacing, risk/reward gameplay, and exploration design
Strong communication and collaborative skills
Portfolio demonstrating open-world or survival-style level design work

Nice To Haves

Experience modding or building maps for ARK-style survival games
Familiarity with multiplayer gameplay systems and PvP balancing
Experience designing caves, dungeons, boss arenas, and biome transitions
Understanding of AI navigation and creature encounter design
Experience with procedural world-building workflows
Passion for survival sandbox games and emergent gameplay systems

Responsibilities

Design and build large-scale gameplay environments in Unreal Engine 5
Create compelling survival gameplay areas including forests, caves, ruins, mountains, rivers, and hostile zones
Block out and iterate on world layouts, traversal paths, and encounter spaces
Design exploration-focused content with hidden locations, loot routes, and environmental storytelling
Build gameplay experiences supporting crafting, taming, PvP/PvE combat, and tribe progression
Implement gameplay logic and scripted interactions using Blueprints
Collaborate with environment art teams to bring worlds from graybox to polished production quality
Optimize large open-world environments for performance and gameplay readability
Participate in playtesting and gameplay iteration