Game Director

About Sharkmob

Sharkmob is a Malmö, Sweden based game studio creating ambitious, high-quality multiplayer games for a global audience. The team consists of passionate developers who care deeply about great gameplay, memorable player experiences, and building games together. Sharkmob is a Swedish game developer founded in 2017, using Unreal Engine to power their ambitions.

The Role

As Game Director, you will be a key creative and design leader on the project, responsible for defining and championing the vision for the game’s core loop, gameplay, and meta-game. You will work closely with the Chief Creative Officer, producers, directors, and discipline leads to turn that vision into a cohesive, engaging, shippable, and commercially successful game. You will balance creative ambition with production realities, player feedback, data, and the evolving needs of a live multiplayer game.

This is a hands-on leadership role on site. You will spend time in the build, playing alongside the team, understanding the game at a detailed level, and helping teams make strong decisions about gameplay, systems, quality, and scope. You will create clarity, bring together expertise from across the team, and make decisions when the project needs them.

Responsibilities

• Define and communicate the game’s gameplay vision, pillars, and player fantasy, helping every discipline work toward a shared experience.
• Guide, support, and review the development of core gameplay systems and features.
• Shape the balance between PvP, PvE, and PvPvE elements to create sessions that feel meaningful, fair, and replayable.
• Work with insights from analytics, internal playtests, focus tests, closed alphas, and player feedback to identify opportunities and improve the game.
• Partner with production and discipline leads to define scope, priorities, milestones, and content cadence.
• Establish clear quality bars for combat, game feel, onboarding, and the overall player experience.
• Collaborate with live operations, monetization, publishing, and community teams to develop a post-launch roadmap that creates long-term value for both players and the business.
• Communicate and represent the game’s vision internally and, when needed, with publishers, platform holders, press, and the community.
• Mentor and support design and creative leaders, helping them grow and take ownership.
• Help the team navigate difficult creative and production trade-offs, making clear decisions when needed and taking responsibility for their outcomes.
• Foster a culture of iteration, constructive feedback, and frequent hands-on play.

Requirements

• Significant professional game development experience, including experience in a senior creative, design, or game leadership role.
• Experience shipping at least one multiplayer game, ideally with substantial ownership of gameplay, systems, or creative direction.
• Strong systems-design instincts and an ability to reason about areas such as progression, economies, risk and reward, encounter pacing, and session structure.
• Experience leading or working closely with multidisciplinary teams across areas such as design, art, engineering, UX, and production.
• A strong understanding of multiplayer game development and the ways player behaviour, telemetry, playtesting, and community feedback can inform design decisions.
• Excellent communication skills in English, with the ability to create alignment around a vision across both development teams and senior stakeholders.
• The ability to make thoughtful design and scope trade-offs while working within real production constraints.
• A collaborative leadership style, with the confidence to make decisions while drawing on the expertise of the people around you.

Bonus Points

• Deep knowledge of multiplayer shooters and a strong understanding of why different approaches within the genre work—from games such as Call of Duty, ARC Raiders, Battlefield, Escape from Tarkov, or similar titles.
• Experience designing or directing games that combine PvP and PvE systems.
• Experience with extraction shooters, session-based multiplayer games, or other games built around risk and reward.
• Experience working on a live-service game after launch.
• Experience developing progression systems, loot economies, rewards, or long-term metagame systems.
• Experience with Unreal Engine or another large-scale proprietary game engine.
• A background in competitive FPS or TPS design, including areas such as weapon balance, movement, hit registration, networking constraints, or combat readability.
• Experience working closely with UX, user research, analytics, or player-insights teams.
• Experience taking a multiplayer game through alpha, beta, soft launch, or other large-scale external testing.
• Experience building games for console and PC audiences.
• An understanding of matchmaking, skill distribution, retention, and the social dynamics of multiplayer games.
• Experience growing or mentoring senior designers and design leads.
• Experience presenting a game or creative vision to external partners, press, or player communities.

Company Culture

Sharkmob believes great games are created by diverse teams with different perspectives, backgrounds, and experiences. They are committed to building an inclusive and collaborative workplace where creativity can thrive. The culture is built around shared ownership, a passion for creating great games, and having fun along the way. They focus on the player and the community, pushing for AAA production value and challenging technology to the max.