Senior Environment Artist

At Wizards of the Coast, we harness the power of imagination and connection to create unforgettable experiences. We create entertainment that inspires creativity, sparks passion, forges friendships, and fosters communities around the globe. In every pursuit our mission is to inspire a lifetime love of games. Whether it's through the strategic depth of Magic: The Gathering®, the rich storytelling of Dungeons & Dragons®, or our AAA digital game studios, we build worlds that bring people together, spark creativity, and fuel adventure. As we continue to grow and explore new realms, we're seeking passionate, curious, and innovative minds to join the adventure.

Skeleton Key is headquartered in Austin, TX, and we’re building out a new, growing studio in Montreal, QC. We’re looking for a passionate and dedicated Senior Environment Artist to join the Montreal team and help bring our first AAA game to life.

Reporting to the Lead Environment Artist, you will be a key contributor as we enter pre-production, focused on building high-quality environments that help establish the visual identity and world-building foundations of the game. This role emphasizes world building, asset creation, material development, terrain work, and scalable environment creation workflows, working closely with art, design, and technical teams to create immersive and performant real-time environments.

What you'll do:

• Collaborate with the Art Director and environment team to establish and maintain the visual style of game environments.
• Build visually compelling, high-fidelity 3D environments, including open world landscapes, architecture, and props, while establishing strong compositions.
• Work closely with Level Design to ensure environments support gameplay, exploration, readability, and player experience.
• Develop environment assets from concept through final polish, ensuring consistency with the project's visual direction.
• Develop and maintain high-quality materials and shaders that support the visual goals of the project while meeting performance requirements.
• Optimize assets and environments to meet technical and performance requirements while maintaining visual quality across target platforms.
• Collaborate with Technical Art and Engineering teams to identify and resolve environment art challenges and improve production workflows.

What you'll bring:

• 5+ years of experience as an Environment Artist in the game industry, including experience on at least one shipped AAA title.
• Strong proficiency with 3D modeling tools such as Maya, 3ds Max, or Blender, and sculpting tools such as ZBrush.
• Expertise in texture, material, and shader creation using tools such as Substance, Photoshop, and Unreal Engine.
• Solid experience working within Unreal Engine to create open world environments.
• Deep understanding of composition, color theory, lighting, atmospheric design, and environmental storytelling.
• Experience creating modular environment kits and reusable asset libraries for large-scale game worlds.
• Strong understanding of real-time performance considerations, asset optimization, and environment scalability.
• Ability to create environments that support level design needs such as player guidance, exploration, exotic traversal, and immersive world building.
• Excellent communication skills and the ability to collaborate effectively while providing clear and constructive feedback.
• A strong portfolio demonstrating expertise in environment art, including examples of realistic world-building work.

Nice to have:

• Experience with procedural content creation tools such as Houdini.
• Familiarity with Unreal Engine PCG frameworks and procedural world-building workflows.
• Experience creating large-scale, open world game environments.
• Familiarity with world-building workflows for RPGs or story-focused games.
• Experience contributing to visual benchmark development during pre-production.

We are an equal opportunity / affirmative action employer

Wizards is committed to equality of opportunity in all aspects of employment. We are committed to making all employment decisions without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, age, marital status, or any other legally protected status.

The above is intended to describe the general content of and the requirements for satisfactory performance in this position. It is not to be construed as an exhaustive statement of the duties, responsibilities, or requirements of the position.

We will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and to receive other benefits and privileges of employment. If you are selected to move forward in our application process and need to request an accommodation, please let your recruiter or coordinator know.