Cinematic Animator, Open World (contract)

Full-time

Project: The Witcher 4

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Company Description

To create revolutionary, story-driven RPGs which go straight to the hearts of gamers — this is our mission. Want to dive deeper into our company’s culture? Explore our social media and check out our YouTube channel and Beyond the Game Blog where we share behind-the-scenes insights and stories direct from our team members!

Job Description

CD PROJEKT RED is on the lookout for a skilled and passionate Cinematic Open World Animator to join our team for a 2 year fixed-term contract as we expand the boundaries of immersive storytelling through gameplay. This is a unique opportunity to help shape how the living, breathing world of our games feels, moves, and connects with the player, beyond the confines of traditional cutscenes.

As a Cinematic Open World Animator, you’ll be crafting animations that bring dynamic, non-player characters (NPCs), animals, creatures, and environmental interactions to life. Your work will support the creation of world routines, behaviors, ambient scenes, and contextual events, always with narrative intent and gameplay responsiveness in mind. Whether it’s a merchant setting up their stall, an animal or creature with its routine reacting to player presence, or civilians engaging in their daily lives, your animation will help give the world soul and believability.

You’ll work closely with various design teams and cross-disciplinary departments, from Open World and Gameplay design to Technical Animation and Asset Team, in a highly communicative and collaborative environment. Together, we aim to create a world that feels systemic, responsive, and rich with narrative detail. If you’re driven by systemic storytelling, emergent animation challenges, and creating moments that feel meaningful even outside of dialogue or cinematics, this is the role for you.

Daily Responsibilities

• Being a game developer first — thinking about how your animations will look, feel, and respond within dynamic gameplay and systemic world scenarios.
• Taking ownership of animation content for a specific area of the game world, and collaborating in a multi-disciplinary team to deliver immersive open world experiences.
• Delivering work that aligns with the overall artistic and narrative direction of the project — even outside traditional cinematics.
• Creating final, high-quality animation assets for world routines, ambient behaviors, creatures, environmental interactions, and narrative-driven systemic events — using both motion capture and keyframe techniques.
• Collaborating on a daily basis with the Cinematic Animation Lead and other departments (e.g. Gameplay, Open World Design, Narrative…) to ensure animations serve gameplay and worldbuilding goals.
• Estimating time required to complete your tasks and delivering on schedule with attention to implementation details.
• Rapidly prototyping and iterating animations to test ideas and bring systemic interactions to life.
• Offering creative and technical solutions to everyday animation challenges, especially those tied to systemic or emergent behaviors.
• Sharing knowledge with the team and supporting less experienced animators through feedback and mentorship.

Qualifications

• Minimum 2 years of experience in animation for games or related real-time applications.
• Strong animation reel demonstrating gameplay-integrated animations such as ambient behaviors, creature/animal locomotion or systemic NPCs routines (please include a clear breakdown of your contributions).
• Solid understanding of animation principles with a focus on movement realism, physicality, and behavioral variation.
• Experience with keyframe animation for animals, creatures or realistic character performances.
• Experience with motion capture data and integration into gameplay contexts.
• Familiarity with implementing animation in a real-time game engine and working with blueprints, state machines or other animation systems.
• Professional working knowledge of MotionBuilder and/or Maya.
• Ability to work effectively in multi-disciplinary teams, especially with Open World, Level and Gameplay Design.
• Problem-solving mindset and confidence providing technical or creative solutions to systemic animation challenges.
• Strong communication skills, team spirit, and the ability to give and receive feedback.
• Fluent English (spoken and written).

Nice to Have

These are not required to apply, but will be considered a plus.

• Experience shipping at least one AAA game.
• Education or training in animation, game development, or related field.
• Experience with creature/animal rigging or behavior design.
• Understanding of technical animation or pipeline tools.
• Basic scripting or visual scripting (e.g. blueprints) knowledge for gameplay prototyping.
• Knowledge of animation logic and state setup in Unreal Engine.
• Background in building systemic animation libraries for open world behaviors or AI-driven characters.
• Experience in planning motion capture sessions, working with actors or assisting on stage.

Additional Information

Working mode

• Office-First: Working primarily from the WarsawDev Office for a minimum of 10 days per month.
• Remote-First: Possibility of remote work from within Europe for select candidates.
• Private medical healthcare — a selection of medical plans with dental care and unlimited rehabilitation to choose from, which are also accessible for your partner and relatives.
• Life insurance — comprehensive pension and insurance plans to protect you and your loved ones.
• Annual screenings for cancer prevention covered by the company.
• Psychological and psychiatrist care — free mental health support and various well-being initiatives.
• Sports card — gain access to a wide number of sporting and fitness facilities across the city.
• Menstrual leave — employees who menstruate can take one extra day off when experiencing period pain.
• RED Parents Network — support for working parents, including childcare benefits, and family-friendly events.
• RED Summer Camp for Kids — a fun summer program for children aged 5–12, majoritively paid by the company.
• A welcome pack filled with goodies — to help you feel right at home once you join the team.
• Trainings, lectures, and courses — workshops and trainings for each employee, knowledge-sharing initiatives, online tutorials, and e-learning classes are all available. There’s always something to learn!
• REDs have access to the cafeteria platform through which they can receive subscription benefits, additional medical packages or vouchers and codes to shops, cinemas, and public transport reimbursement.
• Gifts for newborn rebels and regular chances to nab some cool swag!

Social Activities & Life in the Office

• Dog-friendly office — dog owner? Bring your pooch with you and look after them while working! There’s always a furry friend or two to meet at the studio.
• Social events — we host regular gatherings at the studio where we can all unwind, play games, and just have some fun together.
• Healthy selections — canteens.
• Truly international working environment — a chance to meet and work with a diverse selection of people from all around the world.
• A designated space for your bicycle, as well as bicycle repair equipment and showers available whenever you need them.
• An onsite, well-equipped gym with a climbing wall, daily Gym Assistant support, and yoga and boxing classes.
• No dress-code — we like to keep it casual.

Report any irregularities in our recruitment process anonymously.

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