Principal 3D Environment Artist - Unpublished R&D Product

As a Principal Environment Artist on the Riot MMO team, you'll focus on building high-quality 3D assets, expressing their unique style through shape, lighting, and materials, as well as help establish the technical workflows that enable our world to come to life in Unreal Engine 5. You’ll be responsible for taking concept art and turning it into stunning environment assets that elevate gameplay and storytelling. This is a creative role with a strong sense of composition and environmental storytelling that also requires deep Unreal 5 knowledge—ideal for someone who pairs deep modeling and texturing craft expertise with the ability to partner across Tech Art and Engineering to build scalable pipelines.

You’ll push quality targets, collaborate on tools and workflows, and help the team deliver immersive spaces that perform well at scale. You will find the right balance between creating a beautiful world and empowering its gameplay/product needs. You think about implementation, not just visual targets and have experience maximizing scalability of the workflows you build. You’re comfortable pushing a concept further in Unreal 5 and know how to work within real constraints to create environments players can’t wait to explore time and again. 

This is a high-impact role for an artist who thrives at the intersection of creative excellence and technical execution.

Responsibilities:

• Create high-quality 3D environment assets—including hard surface structures and organic foliage—using modern tools and workflows.
• Own the implementation and optimization of assets in Unreal Engine 5, balancing visual fidelity, gameplay clarity, and performance.
• Interpret and push concept designs to the next level while navigating technical constraints like draw calls, poly count, texture memory, and streaming budgets.
• Partner with Tech Art and Engineering to build efficient pipelines, tools, and workflows that support scalable, real-time content creation.
• Help define and maintain material and shader libraries in collaboration with Tech Art, with a deep understanding of PBR workflows and real-time lighting.
• Establish and raise the craft bar for environment asset quality across multiple biomes and cultures, ensuring artistic cohesion and performance standards.
• Influence development techniques (including procedural content generation) that enable rapid content creation at scale.
• Navigate creatively ambiguous problem spaces through rapid iteration and artistic exploration.
• Collaborate with the Art Director and Creative Leads to uphold visual direction and ensure environments support narrative, gameplay, and world cohesion.
• Support the team by mentoring other artists, creating documentation, and contributing to best practices that strengthen the discipline.
• Actively participate in the environment craft community, leading initiatives and discussions that elevate craft thinking across the project.
• Partner with Product and Delivery leads to ensure visibility into team velocity, deliverables, and production phases.

Required Qualifications:

• 8+ years of experience creating environment art for AAA games.
• Experience with procedural world-building workflows (Houdini, Geometry Nodes, or similar in-engine PCG systems)
• Expert modeling, sculpting, and texturing skills using tools like Maya, ZBrush, Substance, and Photoshop
• Deep Unreal Engine 5 experience, especially Nanite, materials, and environment optimization
• Strong understanding of PBR workflows, real-time material creation, and lighting fundamentals.
• Experience building environments for large, open-world or multiplayer games.
• A collaborative mindset—able to partner closely with Tech Art, Design, and World Building to achieve shared goals.

Desired Qualifications:

• A love for and/or experience working on MMORPGs
• Substance Designer experience preferred
• Experience with performance benchmarking, streaming budgets, and optimization in large-scale maps
• Familiarity with the League of Legends IP or Runeterra’s world and aesthetics.

When submitting your application, please include a portfolio that showcases your environment art range, technical implementation skills in Unreal Engine 5, and ability to push visual quality while maintaining performance constraints.

Our Perks:

Riot focuses on work/life balance, shown by our open paid time off policy and other perks such as flexible work schedules. We offer medical, dental, and life insurance, parental leave for you, your spouse/domestic partner, and children, and a 401k with company match. Check out our benefits pages for more information.

At Riot Games, we put players first. That mission drives every decision in our quest to create games and experiences that make it better to be a player. Whether you’re working directly on a new player-facing experience or you’re supporting the company as a whole, everyone at Riot is part of our mission. And just like in our games, we’re better when we work together. Our goal is to create collaborative teams where you are empowered to bring your unique perspective everyday. If that sounds like the kind of place you want to work, we’re looking forward to your application.

It’s our policy to provide equal employment opportunity for all applicants and members of Riot Games, Inc. Riot Games makes reasonable accommodations for handicapped and disabled Rioters and does not unlawfully discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, age, handicap, veteran status, marital status, criminal history, or any other category protected by applicable federal and state law. We consider for employment all qualified applicants, including those with criminal histories, in a manner consistent with applicable federal, state and local law, including the California Fair Chance Act, the City of Los Angeles Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring Ordinance, the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers, the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, and the Washington Fair Chance Act.

Per the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance, the following core duties may create a basis for disqualifying candidates with relevant criminal histories:

• Safeguarding confidential and sensitive Company data
• Communication with others, including Rioters and third parties such as vendors, and/or players, including minors
• Accessing Company assets, secure digital systems, and networks
• Ensuring a safe interactive environment for players and other Rioters

These duties are directly related to essential operations, safety, trust, and compliance obligations within our organization. Please note that job duties may evolve based on business needs and additional responsibilities may be assigned as necessary to maintain operational efficiency and security.