What are the responsibilities and job description for the Level Designer position at Studio Wildcard?
Level Designer- Remote
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.
Position Overview
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.
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
Required Qualifications
- 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
Preferred Qualifications
- 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
Tools & Technologies
- Unreal Engine 5
- Blueprints
- World Partition
- Landscape & Foliage Tools
- Perforce / Git
- Blender / Maya / Houdini
- Jira / Confluence
Equal Opportunity Employer
Wildcard is an equal-opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran status, race, religion, sex, pregnancy, sexual orientation, or any other characteristics protected by applicable laws, regulations or ordinances. If you need assistance and/or reasonable accommodations due to disability during the application or the recruiting process, please let us know.
Pay Transparency Information
The expected annual base pay range(s) for this position vary based on a variety of factors, which include: (but aren't limited to) skills, competencies, qualifications, knowledge, and experience. Each pay range is only relevant to those residing in WA state and can vary based on geographical location.
Wildcard Benefits
We pay 100% of all premiums for the employee and discounted rates for dependent premiums. Our coverage includes Medical (3 different plans to choose from), Dental, Vision, Short Term and Long Term Disability, Life Insurance, 401(k) option, 100% covered Parental Leave, PTO, Paid Holidays, Unlimited Sick Time, and FSA/ HSA options
Salary : $85,000 - $100,000