Senior Game Designer in Southampton, England at Kinetic Games

About Kinetic Games

We’re an independent games studio best known for creating Phasmophobia, enjoyed by millions of players worldwide. Our team is passionate, creative, and collaborative and we’re looking for someone equally enthusiastic about games to join our growing team.

We’re a small but fast growing, friendly team that values creativity, openness, and personal growth. Whether you’re helping various departments or talking about your favourite horror game, you’ll be part of a supportive environment where passion and curiosity are celebrated. You’ll be joining a small but ambitious team where your ideas are valued, your growth is supported, and your development truly matters.

About the role:

We are looking for an organised and experienced Senior Game Designer to help

define and expand content updates for Phasmophobia. You will work closely with the

Game Director to turn creative direction into fully realised gameplay features and

systems, taking them from concept through to release.

You will take ownership of gameplay experiences across live updates, helping shape

content played by millions of players worldwide. As a senior member of the team,

you’ll collaborate closely with art, audio, narrative, production, QA, and programming

to ensure features deliver on gameplay quality, atmosphere, and technical feasibility.

This role is ideal for someone who thrives in a fast-paced, iterative live-service

environment and is passionate about multiplayer horror game design.

Your responsibilities will include:

• Work closely with the Game Director to develop and expand gameplay features, mechanics, and systems.
• Take ownership of feature design from concept through implementation, iteration, and release.
• Create and maintain clear, detailed, and actionable design documentation for cross-discipline teams.
• Flesh out gameplay systems, mechanics, progression, balancing, UX flows, edge cases, and technical considerations.
• Identify gameplay, scope, UX, and implementation risks early and work proactively with stakeholders to resolve them.
• Collaborate with production to ensure design work aligns with project scope, priorities, and milestone expectations.
• Work closely with programmers to improve designer workflows, tools, and pipelines.
• Confidently use Unity Editor tools to tune gameplay, implement content, and iterate on features hands-on.
• Collaborate with departmental stakeholders to ensure features are achievable within technical and production constraints.
• Gather and interpret internal and community feedback to improve player experience, gameplay readability, and feature quality.
• Play and test new updates regularly to ensure features meet gameplay, usability, and quality expectations.

Requirements:

• At least 1 shipped PC or Console game as a credited Game Designer with a strong portfolio.
• Strong experience designing multiplayer, co-op, horror, survival, or atmospheric gameplay systems.
• Excellent communication skills and the ability to thrive in a fast-paced, iterative development environment.
• Strong understanding of gameplay systems, balancing, progression, pacing, and player psychology.
• Experience writing and maintaining detailed design documentation.
• A collaborative mindset and confidence working across multiple disciplines.
• Expert understanding of Phasmophobia and a passion for horror games.
• Ability to take ownership of features and drive them through iteration and delivery.
• Automatically have the right to work in the UK.

Nice To Have:

• Experience working on live-service or regularly updated games.
• Experience working on a VR game.
• Experience using Unity Editor.
• Experience with technical implementation, scripting, or designer tooling workflows.
• Experience using Jira, Confluence, or similar development tools.
• Experience analysing player feedback, telemetry, or gameplay metrics.

Benefits & Perks

💰 Competitive salary

💼 5% Employer Match Pension Scheme

💸 Annual performance bonus + Company performance bonus

🍽️ Weekly free team lunches – good food, great company!

🎉 Regular social events – we love bringing our teams together!

🏠 Hybrid & flextime working - because life doesn’t always fit 9–5

⚽ Access to Southampton Football Club tickets - subject to availability and sponsor allocation

📦 Relocation package to help you settle in

🚗Electric Vehicle Car Scheme - Get a new car & Save money & the planet

🏅 Employee of the Month vouchers

🧘 ♀️ Personal wellbeing allowance

🤝 Referral scheme

🎓 Training & Development Budget – invest in your growth with courses, conferences & learning resources

🚀 Training & career development support

💚 Vitality Health Insurance – includes Vision, Dental & Travel cover

🛡️ Aviva Life Insurance

🎂 30 days holiday, including your birthday and a dedicated wellbeing day

🎄 Christmas studio shutdown – enjoy the holidays, on us!