Lead Writer at Wizards of the Coast

At Wizards of the Coast, we connect people around the world through play and imagination. From our genre defining games like Magic: The Gathering® and Dungeons & Dragons® to our growing multiverse, we continue to innovate and build new ways to foster friendship and connection. That’s where you come in!

Skeleton Key is a new game development studio and division of Wizards of the Coast. We are a group of industry veterans who are guided by the belief that empowering our teams and providing the proper time, tools, and support we can foster a creative culture where everyone can do their best work.

Our new studio is located in Austin, TX, and we are looking for a passionate and dedicated Lead Writer to join us and bring our first AAA game to life. We offer fully remote, hybrid, or in-office options for day-to-day work.

Reporting to the Creative Director, you will play a meaningful role on the project by helping to concept, build, set the vision, and implement the story for our critical path as well as cinematic narrative moments. The ideal candidate has proven experience building engaging worlds, characters, and stories in other AAA titles and can take high level direction and story concepts and translate them into complete stories, scene descriptions, and dialogue.

What You'll Do:

• Work with the Creative Director to own and drive the main crit path story, side stories, cinematic scripts, and character dialogue for the project.
• Build requirements for core writing/editing, VO, and other narrative systems for narrative production pipelines.
• Collaborate with other teams, and ensure the appropriate partners are involved and advised throughout development.
• Act as a strong quality advocate for the team, crafting compelling narrative moments, environmental story-telling, world-building, character development, and help other team members achieve the same high quality.
• Lead and develop a narrative team including writers and editors, encouraging and empowering them to do great work.
• Build and maintain documentation for all owned features, script, story, and scenes.
• Help evangelize the game’s vision to the rest of the team at large.
• Regularly play the game and provide valuable feedback to teammates to help improve the story and pacing of the experience.

What You'll Bring:

• 5+ years experience having published writing work in video games with a focus on narrative and character.
• Clear and concise creative writing skills with Ability to deliver both original stories and engaging adaptations of existing IPs.
• Familiarity with first-person games.
• Ability to translate story concepts into cohesive and engaging stories.
• Willingness to take high-level direction and feedback.
• Passion for and experience with the science-fiction and fantasy genres.
• Strong communication abilities with outstanding written English skill.
• Please provide links to YouTube/Vimeo videos highlighting 3-5 scenes or moments from your published game projects that highlight your work.

We are an Equal Opportunity / Affirmative Action Employer

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.