Location: Cambridge, UK – This position offers flexible working options, including predominantly remote work. Applicants are preferably based (or willing to relocate) within a comfortable commuting distance of our office to attend onsite as required.
Can you give one of gaming’s longest-running worlds a clear visual voice—and lead the team shaping its next era?
RuneScape has welcomed more than 300 million player accounts across 25 years. As the game progresses along its Road to Restoration, we’re looking for an Art Director to define and champion the visual direction behind its next chapter.
You’ll take ownership of RuneScape’s artistic vision across environments, characters, creatures, UI, VFX, lighting and cinematics, bringing greater quality, consistency and clarity to the experience across PC and mobile. You’ll lead a large multidisciplinary art team, setting a clear creative direction while staying close to the day-to-day realities of live game development.
You’ll have genuine autonomy to assess how the team operates, evolve its structure and raise the quality bar across the game. Your work will directly influence player experience, the desirability of cosmetic content and the long-term visual strategy of one of the world’s most established MMORPGs.
What you’ll be doing:
- Own and evolve RuneScape’s visual direction, creating a cohesive artistic vision across environments, characters, creatures, UI, VFX, lighting and cinematics while respecting the game’s established identity.
- Lead and develop a large multidisciplinary art team, assessing its structure, capabilities and craft standards to ensure it is set up to deliver at the required quality and pace.
- Establish and maintain a clear quality bar, reviewing work throughout development and providing actionable direction that improves visual consistency and in-game execution.
- Drive end-to-end improvements to RuneScape’s cosmetic content, increasing its quality, consistency and player-perceived value while supporting an important commercial area of the game.
- Partner with the Creative, Development and Product Directors, aligning artistic priorities with gameplay goals, production requirements and the wider Road to Restoration.
- Work closely with Technical Art and Engineering, improving pipelines, tools and workflows while balancing creative ambition with the technical realities of a live game across PC and mobile.
- Champion accessibility, readability and player experience, ensuring visual decisions support clear gameplay and remain effective across platforms.
- Represent the art discipline across RuneScape and the wider studio, contributing to recruitment, talent development and the game’s long-term creative strategy.
What we’re looking for:
- Significant, demonstrable experience in Art Direction or senior art leadership within the games industry, gained on shipped or live titles.
- A proven track record of taking artistic direction from initial vision through to in-game execution, balancing creative ambition with live-service schedules, technical limitations and production realities.
- Proven experience leading a sizeable multidisciplinary art team, including managing performance, developing artists and navigating structural or organisational change.
- A strong professional background directing stylised or stylised-realistic 3D art, supported by demonstrable knowledge of 3D pipelines, production tools, optimisation and technical constraints.
- A strong portfolio demonstrating artistic vision, visual problem-solving and the ability to establish a consistent quality bar across multiple art disciplines.
- Proven experience joining and improving an established or live game, rather than only defining the direction of new projects from their earliest stages is desired.
What we offer:
When you join Jagex you can look forward to a generous Perks & Benefits package including:
- Private Healthcare, including Dental Plan.
- Discretionary annual performance bonus.
- Minimum 6% Pension contributions.
- Life Insurance.
- Enhanced family leave policies from day 1.
- Flexible working hours.
- 25 days annual leave + Bank holidays & the option to buy/sell holidays + so much more!
Inclusion & Accessibility Statement
We are committed to providing equal opportunities and creating an environment where everyone can thrive. We welcome applications from all backgrounds, and we recruit, develop, and promote based on merit and ability.
If you require any reasonable adjustments to support you during the recruitment process, please let us know when you’re invited to interview.
About Jagex
We are Jagex: The RuneScape Company. Home to one of gaming’s most enduring success stories. We create deep, community-powered games with worlds that evolve, inspire, and endure. Our flagship MMORPG franchise, RuneScape, has welcomed over 300 million player accounts, inspiring generations of players across PC and mobile for 25 years.
As we begin our 26th year, we are accelerating our strategy to expand RuneScape into a broader ecosystem of forever games and connected experiences, grounded in a renewed commitment to integrity and fair play. This includes the reduction of monetisation mechanics, as well as the launch of RuneScape: DragonWilds into Steam Early Access in 2025, representing a major step in building a multi-genre future for the RuneScape universe. We remain focused on building enduring worlds, empowering player-led innovation, and laying the foundations for the boldest era in RuneScape’s history. For more information, visit https://www.jagex.com/ .
Headquartered in Cambridge, United Kingdom, we are home to passionate creators, storytellers, engineers, and even a few dreamers, all united by a single mission to shape the future of online worlds and empower players to make them their own. We’re looking for people to join us who share our ambitions and values. We foster an inclusive workplace built on trust, autonomy, and a shared passion for creating experiences that inspire our communities.
Our values guide everything we do: We Embrace Fellowship by collaborating and sharing openly. We Hone our Craft by always learning and improving; We Honour our Vows by being honest and transparent; We are our Customers’ Heroes by striving to understand our team & player needs, and We Seize The Day by making the most of every opportunity.
Join us. The next era of RuneScape and the next chapter of Jagex: The RuneScape Company starts now.
Skills Required
- Significant, demonstrable experience in Art Direction or senior art leadership within the games industry on shipped or live titles.
- Proven track record of taking artistic direction from initial vision through to in-game execution, balancing creative ambition with live-service schedules and technical limitations.
- Proven experience leading a sizeable multidisciplinary art team, including managing performance, developing artists and navigating organisational change.
- Strong professional background directing stylised or stylised-realistic 3D art, with demonstrable knowledge of 3D pipelines, production tools, optimisation and technical constraints.
- Strong portfolio demonstrating artistic vision, visual problem-solving and ability to establish a consistent quality bar across multiple art disciplines.
- Proven experience joining and improving an established or live game (desired rather than only directing new projects).
What We Do
A leader in creating deep and engaging forever games on PC, Console & Mobile that empower our communities. Jagex was founded in 2001 and is today one of the UK’s biggest and most respected video game developers and publishers. Famed for its flagship MMOs RuneScape and Old School RuneScape, Jagex has welcomed more than 300 million player accounts to its world and created a $1bn lifetime franchise revenue. Today the RuneScape franchise exists beyond running games in live operations; our titles are forever games that connect and inspire millions of players, with content and experiences both inside and outside of inexhaustible game worlds. Both RuneScape and Old School RuneScape, on PC and mobile, offer ever-evolving, highly-active worlds and our community-focused development ethos empowers players to have a real say in how each game is shaped. Jagex has added to its skill set with the acquisitions of Pipeworks and Gamepires in 2022, bringing our expertise to titles such as SCUM, helping to make SCUM a forever game. It also works with external partners on products such as Melvor Idle and This Means Warp; bringing these titles to new and existing audiences. Jagex employs more than 600 people at its Cambridge headquarters and around the world at Pipeworks in North America, and Gamepires in Europe. We’re always on the hunt for talented people to work across the business, to help the company to achieve its goals.
