Senior Environment Material Artist

Who We Are:  

Ghost Story Games is a self-publishing game development studio founded by Ken Levine (Creative Director of System Shock 2, Bioshock, and Bioshock Infinite) and former Irrational Games developers.  The studio’s mission is to create narrative-driven experiences rooted in immersive world building and gameplay. 

The Challenge  

Ghost Story Games is seeking a talented Senior Level Artist to join us on Judas, the highly anticipated game led by Ken Levine (System Shock 2, BioShock series). Unique in its bold, creative vision, Judas is also built upon novel technology by which the visual world, gameplay, and story unfolds in meaningful, dynamic ways. The result is a significant and personal journey adapted to each player’s experience and offers a new approach to the art and storytelling of video games.

For the Senior Environment Material Artist role, you’ll play a key role in bringing immersive, visually rich worlds to life. You will collaborate closely with Environment Artists, Level Artists, and Technical Art teams to create and maintain high-quality materials that support both artistic goals and gameplay requirements. Your work will help define the visual identity of our game by shaping the surfaces and shaders that unify each environment. We are looking for someone with strong technical knowledge, a keen eye for visual storytelling, and a passion for collaborative problem-solving.

What You’ll Take On: 

• Author and maintain high-quality, tileable and custom materials for use across diverse environments and props
• Perform look development and test materials directly in-engine to ensure visual consistency and performance
• Work with the level art team to curate material sets per theme that work with architectural kits and assets
• Collaborate with Technical Artists to develop and refine advanced shader solutions, and support asset integration across the pipeline
• Oversee and expand our material library, ensuring a scalable, organized system for reuse and iteration
• Support consistent texel density and performance goals, providing feedback to teams and optimizing textures and materials as needed
• Stay up to date on current trends in PBR workflows, lighting, and post-processing to help evolve our materials pipeline
• Provide mentorship and technical guidance to artists across disciplines, helping troubleshoot and elevate the overall quality of material work

What You Bring: 

• Deep understanding of PBR rendering, real-time shaders, and the interaction of materials with lighting and post effects
• Proficiency in material authoring tools such as Substance 3D
• Designer/Painter, Unreal Engine, or equivalent
• Strong artistic sense, including color theory, texture composition, and surface detailing
• Comfort working in a highly technical environment with complex pipelines, including optimization and performance tracking
• Excellent communication and time management skills – able to work independently and collaboratively with cross-discipline teams
• A proactive, self-driven mindset with a desire to contribute ideas, improve workflows, and push the visual quality of the project.

Great to Have:

• Experience creating and maintaining studio-wide material or shader libraries
• Familiarity with environment modeling, trim sheets, and modular workflows
• Experience working on AAA titles or high-end visual projects in Unreal Engine

If you’re a creative thinker who thrives on technical challenges and loves working with artists across disciplines to create stunning, immersive game worlds – we’d love to hear from you.

Please be aware that Ghost Story does not conduct job interviews or make job offers over third-party messaging apps such as Telegram, WhatsApp, or others. Ghost Story also does not engage in any financial exchanges during the recruitment or onboarding process, and the Ghost Story will never ask a candidate for their personal or financial information over an app or other unofficial chat channel. Any attempt to do so may be the result of a scam or phishing exercise. Ghost Story’s in-house recruitment team will only contact individuals through their official Ghost Story email addresses (i.e., via a ghoststorygames.com email domain). If you need to report an issue or otherwise have questions, please contact [email protected] 

As an equal opportunity employer, Ghost Story Games, LLC (“Ghost Story”) is committed to fostering and celebrating the diverse thoughts, cultures, and backgrounds of its talent, partners, and communities throughout its organization. Consistent with this commitment, Ghost Story does not discriminate or retaliate against any employee or job applicant because of their race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, sexual orientation, and gender identity), national origin, age, disability, and genetic information (including family medical history), or on the basis of any other trait protected by applicable law. If you need to report a concern or have questions regarding Ghost Story’s equal opportunity commitment, please contact [email protected].