Description
GameSim is a game development studio that partners with clients to build games across PC/console and a range of art styles. They are seeking a Principal Environment Artist to help define and elevate the quality, efficiency, and consistency of environment-art production across GameSim projects.
This is a high-level senior individual-contributor position for an experienced artist who can operate at both the strategic and hands-on levels. The successful candidate will create benchmark-quality work, establish practical production standards, solve complex artistic and technical problems, and provide direction to environment teams working across different projects, engines, styles, and partner studios.
Responsibilities:
- Create high-quality real-time environments, architecture, modular kits, hero assets, materials, terrain, foliage, and world-building content.
- Produce benchmark assets and scenes that communicate expectations for composition, scale, visual hierarchy, material quality, environmental storytelling, and final polish.
- Translate art direction, concept art, reference material, design requirements, and client feedback into clear production goals.
- Establish environment-art strategies for modular construction, asset reuse, trim sheets, material systems, terrain, foliage, set dressing, and world building.
- Maintain a strong hands-on contribution when establishing quality bars, validating workflows, solving difficult problems, or supporting critical deliverables.
- Evaluate environment artwork objectively and provide specific, actionable feedback through reviews, paintovers, blockouts, reference boards, documentation, or in-engine examples.
Requirements:
- Extensive professional experience in game development, real-time production, or a closely related field.
- Multiple shipped games or comparable professional real-time projects.
- A portfolio demonstrating exceptional environment-art quality and strong production judgment.
- Expert understanding of composition, scale, proportion, visual hierarchy, shape language, material definition, lighting response, environmental storytelling, and scene cohesion.
- Advanced experience creating modular environments, architecture, props, terrain, materials, and reusable asset systems.
- Strong understanding of modeling, UVs, baking, texel density, trim sheets, tileable materials, decals, vertex blending, and real-time material workflows.
- Professional experience developing environments in Unreal Engine or another modern real-time engine.
- Strong understanding of environment optimization, including LODs, memory, streaming, draw calls, collision, shader complexity, and platform constraints.
Preferred Qualifications:
- Experience working in co-development, outsourcing, consulting, or work-for-hire game production.
- Experience contributing to AAA PC or console titles.
- Experience working across both realistic and stylized visual pipelines.
- Experience supporting multiple projects or teams at a studio or discipline level.
- Experience owning a level, biome, world region, or major environment feature from early planning through final delivery.
What's in it for you?
- Opportunities to contribute to a variety of projects, clients, genres, platforms, and visual styles.
- The ability to influence environment-art quality and production practices across multiple teams.
- Collaboration with experienced developers and studios across the Keywords Studios organization.
- Professional-development and mentorship opportunities.
- Flexible remote, hybrid, and in-office work arrangements where available.
- 3 weeks of paid leave
- Benefits package including medical, dental and vision
- Sick Leave
- Disability Coverage
- Corporate holidays
- Professional Development