Electronic Arts

Role Overview

Respawn is looking for an experienced Art Director, Hard Surface to help define, elevate, and maintain the visual quality of hard-surface content for Apex Legends. This role will guide the artistic direction of weapons, vehicles, props, environmental technology, gameplay objects, and other mechanical or manufactured assets that contribute to the game’s distinctive competitive sci-fi identity.

As Art Director, Hard Surface, you will partner closely with Character Art, Concept Art, Environment Art, Design, Animation, VFX, Tech Art, Production, and Outsource teams to ensure hard-surface assets are visually striking, readable in gameplay, technically performant, and aligned with the evolving Apex universe.

This is a hands-on leadership role for someone who combines strong taste, production experience, clear direction, and a deep understanding of how form, function, storytelling, and gameplay readability come together in a live-service first-person shooter.

Key Responsibilities

• Define, uphold, and evolve the core experience hard-surface visual direction for Apex Legends, including weapons, gadgets, props, vehicles, world technology, gameplay objects, and other mechanical or manufactured assets.

• Ensure hard-surface designs support and evolve Apex’s visual and gameplay pillars: functional sci-fi design, strong material language, player readability, and characterful worldbuilding.

• Provide clear, actionable creative direction through paintovers, drawovers, reference boards, written feedback, asset reviews, and in-game evaluations.

• Partner closely with Concept Art, Weapon Art, Character Art, Environment Art, Design, Animation, VFX, Tech Art, Production, and Outsource teams to deliver cohesive, high-quality content.

• Maintain a high quality bar from concept through final implementation, balancing creative ambition with gameplay clarity, technical performance, production scope, and live-service timelines.

• Lead reviews with clarity and respect, helping teams solve creative and production challenges while building alignment around visual goals.

• Mentor artists and external partners, helping strengthen hard-surface design sensibility, technical execution, and overall artistic judgment.

• Create and refine briefs, style guides, visual targets, benchmarks, and feedback processes that improve consistency and efficiency across hard-surface asset production.

Qualifications

• Experience art directing weapons, first-person assets, gameplay props, vehicles, grounded sci-fi technology, or environmental hard-surface content.

• Significant professional experience in game art, with a strong focus on hard-surface art direction, concept, weapon art, vehicle design, prop art, environment technology, or related disciplines.

• Proven experience shipping high-quality hard-surface content for AAA games, ideally action, shooter, sci-fi, or live-service titles.

• Strong understanding of visual design principles including silhouette, proportion, shape language, material definition, surface breakup, scale, readability, and functionality.

• Excellent ability to give clear, constructive, and actionable feedback to internal teams and external partners.

• Strong knowledge of modern game art pipelines, including concept-to-model workflows, PBR materials, optimization, LODs, engine implementation, and real-time constraints.

• Experience collaborating across multiple disciplines and balancing creative ambition with gameplay, schedule, and technical needs.

• Strong communication, leadership, and presentation skills.

• A portfolio demonstrating excellent hard-surface taste, visual problem-solving, and experience guiding assets from concept to final in-game quality.

What Success Looks Like

A successful Art Director, Hard Surface will help Apex Legends continue to deliver visually iconic, gameplay-readable, and production-ready hard-surface content. They will raise the quality bar across weapons, props, vehicles, gameplay objects, and world technology while supporting the needs of a fast-moving live game. They will be trusted by artists and cross-functional partners as a clear creative leader who can make strong decisions, communicate effectively, and help teams do their best work.

• British Columbia (depending on location e.g. Vancouver vs. Victoria)
  • $160,700 - $224,700 CAD

• California (depending on location e.g. Los Angeles vs. San Francisco)
  • $182,600 - $276,300 USD

In the US, we offer a package of benefits including paid time off (3 weeks per year to start), 80 hours per year of sick time, 16 paid company holidays per year, 10 weeks paid time off to bond with baby, medical/dental/vision insurance, life insurance, disability insurance, and 401(k) to regular full-time employees. Certain roles may also be eligible for bonus and equity.  

For Canada, we offer a package of benefits including vacation (3 weeks per year to start), 10 days per year of sick time, paid top-up to EI/QPIP benefits up to 100% of base salary when you welcome a new child (12 weeks for maternity, and 4 weeks for parental/adoption leave), extended health/dental/vision coverage, life insurance, disability insurance, retirement plan to regular full-time employees. Certain roles may also be eligible for bonus and equity.