Combat Game Designer

Lisbon - Portugal

Monthly Salary: Not Disclosed

Posted on: 7 hours ago

Vacancies: 1 Vacancy

Job Summary

Studio Ellipsis is seeking a Combat Game Designer to help refine and balance the core

systems of our third-person action title. This is a hands-on systems-driven role for

someone who thrives on iteration precision and feel: Translating high-level design direction

into tuned deterministic gameplay that rewards mastery.

You will work alongside a small senior team to evolve our combat model into something

elegant readable and endlessly replayable grounded in player skill.

What Youll Do

Implement tune and balance combat systems weapons abilities & enemy

behaviors.

Own the feel of combat: responsiveness hit timing recovery rhythm etc.

Calibrate interactions between player mechanics AI logic and camera to achieve a

clean deterministic combat model.

Maintain and evolve combat parameters: damage curves stamina systems tracking

logic invulnerability frames and cooldowns.

Build document and maintain data-driven balance frameworks for PvE and PvP

encounters.

Partner with Animation Engineering and AI teams to refine movement fidelity impact

feedback and rhythm.

Analyze playtest data and player telemetry to validate tuning surface edge cases

and evolve the meta.

Ensure every weapon archetype and enemy type has a distinct combat identity and

tactical role.

What You Bring

5 years of experience in combat or systems design for 3rd-person or action titles

(PvE and/or PvP).

Deep understanding of melee and ranged combat design fundamentals

spacing timing recovery and player feedback.

Proven ability to tune deterministic combat systems for balance and consistency

across latency and skill tiers.

Strong grasp of camera lock-on targeting and animation-driven gameplay.

Experience with combat data management: tuning tables curves and debug

visualization.

Fluent in Unreal Engine (Blueprints DataTables tuning workflows).

Analytical mindset able to diagnose subtle feel issues through metrics and

iteration.

Comfortable working within clear design direction and taking ownership of

executional detail.

Experience designing and implementing gameplay systems in Unreal Engine.

Shipped at least one game using Unreal Engine.

Bonus

Experience creating PvPvE or extraction-based combat ecosystems.

Knowledge of AI behavior trees modular encounter systems or systemic

combat scaling.

Understanding of competitive tuning and meta evolution in skill-based games.

Background in combat animation timing root motion or motion matching.

Familiarity with the Gameplay Ability System (GAS) and its application to

multiplayer.

About Studio Ellipsis

Studio Ellipsis is a Lisbon-based collective of senior developers crafting genre-defining experiences that fuse precision mood and mastery. We believe small focused teams and elegant systems can create worlds larger than life.

If you care deeply about feel timing and clarity and you want to build combat thats elegant deep and endlessly replayable: we want to meet you.

Studio Ellipsis is seeking a Combat Game Designer to help refine and balance the coresystems of our third-person action title. This is a hands-on systems-driven role forsomeone who thrives on iteration precision and feel: Translating high-level design directioninto tuned deterministic gameplay that ...