Art director for an open-world game

We’re the RioRise team, developing a mobile open-world online game set in a Latin-inspired world. Today, up to 35,000 players are online at the same time, and our audience continues to grow. Over the past year, we’ve made major changes to the game: reworked its content and significantly improved its quality. We’re proud of what we’ve achieved, but we’re not stopping here. To take the game to the next level, we’re looking for a strong Art Director who can elevate its visual quality.

• Define and document the game’s target visual style, creating a unified visual guide with clear examples.
• Bring characters, vehicles, environments, interiors, UI, illustrations, and marketing assets into a consistent visual style.
• Audit existing content: identify what fits the vision, what needs reworking, and what should be removed.
• Review and approve the teams’ work, providing clear, actionable feedback.
• Work closely with game designers to shape how the world looks and feels: districts, roads, landmarks, and the variety of different areas.
• Audit existing map issues: identify areas that feel inconsistent with the art style, empty, overcrowded, or difficult to read; prioritize problems and propose solutions.
• Ensure appropriate scale and composition, recognizable silhouettes from a distance, and a distinct atmosphere for each location.
• Gather references, create or generate concept art, and communicate the intended atmosphere.
• Present concepts and proposed changes to the team and leadership.
• Find the right balance between visual quality and performance on low-end smartphones, considering detail, lighting, draw distance, and game size.
• Coordinate artists and technical teams in expanding the capabilities of our in-house game engine.
• Contribute to graphics improvements, including reflections, lighting, shadows, and other visual effects.
• Lead the Art team.
• Align the game’s visual identity with Marketing, SMM, and Community teams to ensure that advertising, social media, and store assets reflect the game itself.

• At least 5 years of experience in game development, including experience in a leadership role.
• A strong visual sense and a well-developed visual library. You can recognize what works visually, what doesn’t, and explain why.
• A portfolio that demonstrates your contribution to shaping the visual direction of games.
• The ability to work within strict technical constraints and balance visual quality with performance.
• Experience collaborating with teams across different disciplines, including 3D, UI, 2D, and Marketing.
• The ability to communicate ideas visually by selecting references, drawing or generating images, and creating diagrams.
• Strong communication and collaboration skills, with the ability to align designers, developers, and leadership.
• Будет плюсом: Experience with mobile games, open-world games, or vehicle-focused games; Experience working with in-house or non-standard game engines; An understanding of modern graphics techniques, including lighting, reflections, and shadows, and the ability to influence their implementation; Experience using AI tools to create concepts

• Fully remote work.
• Work from anywhere in the world.
• Flexible schedule.
• We focus on results, not hours spent at your computer.
• Real impact on the product.
• Join a growing project with an active community and shape how the game looks and evolves.
• Fast decision-making.
• Minimal bureaucracy: ideas don’t get lost in endless approval processes — they make it into the game.
• Private medical insurance after the probation period.