Blackbird Interactive is looking for an experienced Design Director to help shape and deliver a narrative-driven investigative storytelling game. This role is responsible for defining and championing the game's creative vision, ensuring its narrative, characters, gameplay, world, and presentation come together to deliver a cohesive, emotionally engaging player experience.
You’ll work closely with production, art, and engineering to translate creative vision into clear design goals, while leading and supporting a team of developers through implementation, iteration, and polish. This role blends hands-on design sensibility with creative leadership, owning quality, consistency, and cohesion across the game while working closely with a small development team to bring the vision to life. If you enjoy leading teams, solving complex design problems, and bringing ambitious, narratively driven game worlds to life, this role could be a great fit!
Responsibilities
Partner with project leadership and publishing stakeholders to define, reinforce, and execute the creative vision, ensuring alignment across narrative, gameplay, art, audio, and presentation
Lead the development of the game's narrative, characters, investigative gameplay, and environmental storytelling, ensuring every element supports a cohesive and memorable player experience
Lead, mentor, and support the design team, fostering a strong design culture focused on quality, collaboration, and accountability
Collaborate closely with engineering, art, audio, and production to establish effective workflows, drive implementation, and maintain alignment as the project evolves
Provide clear creative direction and feedback, helping translate high-level vision into polished, shippable content while maintaining quality and consistency across the game
Identify creative risks, narrative gaps, and production challenges early, partnering with discipline leads to balance creative ambition with scope, schedule, and technical constraints
Contribute hands-on to writing, narrative implementation, game design, prototyping, and content development as needed, helping unblock the team and drive key features through critical milestones
Requirements
At least 10 years of experience in game development, including at least 5 years in a creative leadership, narrative leadership, or senior design role
Hands-on experience developing content in Unreal Engine 5, with confidence using in-engine tools and workflows to prototype, implement, iterate, and polish gameplay features
Experience shipping at least one narrative-driven or creatively ambitious game with significant responsibility for story, gameplay, or overall creative direction
Strong understanding of interactive storytelling, narrative pacing, player agency, and how gameplay and presentation work together to create compelling player experiences
Proven ability to provide creative direction, review content, and maintain quality and consistency across a multidisciplinary team
Strong communication and collaboration skills, with the ability to align design, narrative, engineering, art, audio, and production around a shared creative vision
Comfortable contributing hands-on to writing, narrative implementation, game design, prototyping, or content development while balancing creative ambition with scope, schedule, and technical constraints
Pluses
Passion for crime fiction, investigative storytelling, and grounded, character-driven narrative games
Appreciation for authentic research and the responsible adaptation of real-world subject matter into interactive storytelling
Strong instincts for dramatic pacing, mystery, suspense, and player-driven discovery
Experience working with dialogue systems, cinematic storytelling, performance capture, or branching narrative tools
Enjoyment of collaborative creative development and helping teams refine ideas through iteration, playtesting, and feedback
Skills Required
- At least 10 years of experience in game development
- At least 5 years in a creative leadership, narrative leadership, or senior design role
- Hands-on experience developing content in Unreal Engine 5, using in-engine tools and workflows
- Experience shipping at least one narrative-driven or creatively ambitious game with significant responsibility
- Strong understanding of interactive storytelling, narrative pacing, player agency, and integrated gameplay/presentation
- Proven ability to provide creative direction and maintain quality and consistency across multidisciplinary teams
- Strong communication and collaboration skills to align design, narrative, engineering, art, audio, and production
- Comfortable contributing hands-on to writing, narrative implementation, game design, prototyping, and content development
- Legally eligible to work in Canada and reside within Canada
- Passion for crime fiction, investigative storytelling, and grounded, character-driven narrative games
- Appreciation for authentic research and responsible adaptation of real-world subject matter into interactive storytelling
- Strong instincts for dramatic pacing, mystery, suspense, and player-driven discovery
- Experience with dialogue systems, cinematic storytelling, performance capture, or branching narrative tools
- Enjoys collaborative creative development, iteration, playtesting, and feedback-driven refinement
What We Do
Blackbird Interactive (BBI) is a creative-fueled, future-driven, independent studio - behind such games as Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak, Hardspace: Shipbreaker, and the upcoming Homeworld 3, Minecraft Legends, and Crossfire: Legion. Founded by Rob Cunningham, Yossarian King, and Aaron Kambeitz in 2010, the award-winning Vancouver studio boast its own internal CG cinematics department, led by the founder of Pixar Canada, and has also been involved in various game-adjacent projects over the years - such as Project Eagle with the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and other initiatives with the eatART Foundation and Sanctuary AI.
