Senior Lead Narrative Designer
Toronto, ON, Canada
Full Time
Experienced
Senior Lead Narrative Designer
Would you like to work on some of the greatest franchises in gaming history? What about contributing to our new original IP? Certain Affinity is based out of Austin, TX with a growing presence in Toronto, Canada. Our culture reflects the values of the cities we call home — a commitment to evolution, diversity, excellence, and work-life balance. We’re also honored to be the latest recipient of the Canadian Studio of the Year award.
We’re best known for co-developing numerous AAA FPS titles, and now we’re creating compelling new games of our own. We’re always looking for exceptional talent to join our team.
Certain Affinity is seeking a Senior Lead Narrative Designer to shape and implement narrative systems, content, and player-facing storytelling on a major AAA co-development project. This role sits within the Design department and blends creative writing with hands-on implementation. You will help define how story is delivered through gameplay, author narrative content, and integrate your work directly into the game using internal tools and scripting.
This role is ideal for a T-shaped designer with strong storytelling ability, solid technical chops, and a willingness to pinch-hit in areas such as encounter scripting, pitching, or worldbuilding as needed. You’ll collaborate with external partner studios while working closely with internal Design, Audio, and Cinematics teams to ensure narrative content supports the project’s creative and gameplay goals.
Responsibilities:
Bonus Points:
- Experience with open-world, systemic, or emergent narrative design.
- Prior work on co-developed or licensed IP projects.
- Familiarity with VO production, mocap pipelines, or performance direction.
- Strength in worldbuilding or mythology development.
- Experience developing narrative tools or supporting tool improvements.
Would you like to work on some of the greatest franchises in gaming history? What about contributing to our new original IP? Certain Affinity is based out of Austin, TX with a growing presence in Toronto, Canada. Our culture reflects the values of the cities we call home — a commitment to evolution, diversity, excellence, and work-life balance. We’re also honored to be the latest recipient of the Canadian Studio of the Year award.
We’re best known for co-developing numerous AAA FPS titles, and now we’re creating compelling new games of our own. We’re always looking for exceptional talent to join our team.
Certain Affinity is seeking a Senior Lead Narrative Designer to shape and implement narrative systems, content, and player-facing storytelling on a major AAA co-development project. This role sits within the Design department and blends creative writing with hands-on implementation. You will help define how story is delivered through gameplay, author narrative content, and integrate your work directly into the game using internal tools and scripting.
This role is ideal for a T-shaped designer with strong storytelling ability, solid technical chops, and a willingness to pinch-hit in areas such as encounter scripting, pitching, or worldbuilding as needed. You’ll collaborate with external partner studios while working closely with internal Design, Audio, and Cinematics teams to ensure narrative content supports the project’s creative and gameplay goals.
Responsibilities:
- Design and implement narrative content directly in engine, including interactive dialogue, systemic barks, mission narrative, and gameplay-integrated storytelling.
- Collaborate with partner studios to align narrative vision, lore, tone, and delivery across gameplay and cinematics.
- Build narrative systems, scripting logic, and encounter-level storytelling flows using internal tools.
- Write and revise narrative content that enhances player experience across cinematics, missions, and in-world storytelling elements.
- Contribute to worldbuilding topics such as lore, factions, environments, and thematic pillars.
- Work closely with Audio, Cinematics, and Design to support VO sessions, performance capture needs, and narrative integration.
- Help define workflows and maintain clean, efficient pipelines for implementing story content.
- Pitch narrative ideas, mission concepts, encounters, and storytelling opportunities that support gameplay goals.
- Required Skills and Experience:
- Proven professional experience as a Narrative Designer, Writer, or similar role on a shipped AAA or large-scale title.
- Strong creative writing skills, with the ability to integrate narrative seamlessly into gameplay.
- Demonstrated technical ability to implement narrative content in engine using scripting tools, logic systems, or proprietary editors.
- Experience with encounter or mission scripting, branching narrative logic, or interactive storytelling systems.
- Ability to collaborate effectively across disciplines and with external partner studios.
- Strong organizational skills and a disciplined approach to workflow and documentation.
- Excellent communication, problem-solving, and cross-functional collaboration skills.
Bonus Points:
- Experience with open-world, systemic, or emergent narrative design.
- Prior work on co-developed or licensed IP projects.
- Familiarity with VO production, mocap pipelines, or performance direction.
- Strength in worldbuilding or mythology development.
- Experience developing narrative tools or supporting tool improvements.
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