VFX Artist - Agency Contract

Playground Games is looking for a VFX Artist to work alongside our talented Forza Horizon team in Leamington Spa on an agency contract. 

About us 

As a premier first-party Xbox Game Studio, we are passionate about creating genre-defining games that are accessible, beautiful, and, most of all, fun. As we continue to evolve our BAFTA award-winning Forza Horizon franchise, we are looking for exceptional talent to contribute to our already diverse team of developers.  

About the role 

As a VFX Artist, you will create high-quality effects, elevate the visuals of Forza Horizon, and deliver strong creative ideas while communicating and collaborating with the wider team. 

You should have an appreciation of a broad range of art styles, and the ability to emulate this through artwork in real-time engine or offline rendering using your grasp of the principles of animation, dynamics and lighting. You will benefit from a level of autonomy that allows you to be trusted with planning and delivering your own tasks to our expected standards, also collaborating with engineering teams to develop new technologies, innovations and processes. 

This position is offered on an agency contract, with the successful candidate employed by our trusted agency partner and assigned to work with Playground Games. The role is based at our state-of-the-art studio in Royal Leamington Spa, operating under our hybrid working model with a minimum of three days per week in the studio.  

Please note, as this position is offered through a managed service provider, we are unable to provide visa sponsorship for this role. 

What you'll do:

• Create and implement exceptional, realistic real-time VFX that bring our world, gameplay and features to life 
• Collaborate with Art, Design and Engineering teams to deliver memorable player experiences 
• Push visual quality through technical problem solving and the exploration of new workflows and technologies 

What you'll bring:

• Great understanding of art fundamentals with a strong interest in realistic visuals 
• Experience with PopcornFX, Niagra or Houdini Particle simulations 
• Experience in HLSL, GLSL, Python or similar 
• Experience on shipped AAA game projects 
• A genuine passion for games 

Why join us? 

This is a fantastic opportunity to contribute to a world-class game while working alongside an established, talented, and collaborative team at one of the industry's most exciting first-party game studios. 

If you require any reasonable accommodation to apply for this position, please contact us on recruitment@playground-games.com