In my previous guide on gameplay design, I’ve covered what the craft is. In this guide, I will dive into what a gameplay designer actually does and how you can become one realistically.
What Does a Gameplay Designer Do?
Gameplay designer is a type of game designer who’s responsible for bringing all the interactive parts of gameplay that make up a complete chunk of gameplay or an entire complete game altogether cohesively. Gameplay designers are the glue between all the game design, game art, and technical roles that are responsible for specific parts of the gameplay including a combination of level designers, narrative designers, mechanics designers, technical designers, technical artists, animators, and any studio-specific roles such as mission designers from Rockstar Games or quest designers from Blizzard Entertainment.
For example, the gameplay designer is the person who crafts Mario, Master Chief, or Sonic—not just a single aspect of that character like fireballs, frag grenades or turbo mode.
Future gameplay designers often start as mechanics designers. As they grow in empathy for the players and skill at creating content, those mechanics designers level up and are assigned to general gameplay.
After this Pokémon-style evolution to gameplay designers, they now oversee enemies, environments, and player skills all together.
This is a “mid-level” perspective: you’re zoomed out enough to understand how everything works as a whole but are still involved with the details of these individual elements.
This article focuses on the key skills, mindsets, and essential game experience that game companies are looking for in a gameplay designer.
Key Gameplay Designer Skill Requirements
Here are the essential skills that you’ll need to take on a gameplay design role:
- Empathy for players, deeply understanding them in every moment
- Game mechanics design, knowing how each individual piece works
- Encounter design, understanding how enemies are meant to test players
- Game engine experience, so you can constantly tweak and adjust gameplay elements
- Communication and diplomatic skills to clearly explain your ideas and negotiate effectively
- Broad gameplay knowledge; you need a deep library of games played
- Deconstructive mindset, the ability to break down what exists into its parts
From my experience here is what this role actually look like in practice in a AAA game development setting.
The first pure gameplay designer I remember working with is Tony Hyunh on R&D at Riot Games (who also worked on God of War: Ascension and Multiversus).
However, many people end up working in gameplay design without that technically being part of their job title. I’ve personally entered this area several times during my career.

I developed the World of Warcraft pet battle system from scratch, worked on League of Legends champions, and developed systems and content for No Rest for the Wicked alongside Chris McEntee and Joe Sopko.
This gameplay design work can be a beautiful dance between player and opponent. The designer wears the double hat of problems and solutions, using them to construct the holistic game experience.
By the way, as you’re reading this post, if you have any questions or issues implementing you can get free help in the #game-design channel in Funsmith Club Discord, or you can DM me there.
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How to Become a Gameplay Designer
The route through game development to become a gameplay designer is fairly straightforward, but requires incredible depth of experience and investment in craft.
The routes are also very different depending on whether you’re aiming for AAA or indie development.
Here I’m focusing on the technical skills and knowledge you’ll need to succeed, but check out this series to help you through the job search and application process.
The Path to AAA Gameplay Design Roles
If your game design career happens in AAA studios, you’ll start by working on specific details, and your gradual path to gameplay design might look like this:
- Balance Design: Make small tweaks to existing gameplay
- Interactive Design: Create new simple devices or elements for use by level designers
- Mechanics Design: Add small, focused features for use across the game
- Enemy Design: Combine mechanics to create challenging, replayable content
- Encounter Design: Combine multiple enemies into sequences of engaging play
- Class Design: Create combinations of abilities that play well together
- Gameplay Design: Combine all of the above elements together into the core experience
To make this progression happen you’ll need to develop a deep understanding of gameplay systems.
You’ll also need to understand how to work closely with a gameplay programmer, an artist, or any other member of the team—and build up enough trust to make this happen.
The Path to Indie Gameplay Design Roles
The recommended steps for indie or solo designers is very different:
Make entire games yourself. You’ll do everything listed in the steps for AAA gameplay design, but all at once and with minimal help
In practice, it’s not possible to figure out everything at once, but you will cycle constantly between all of these skills.
Game engines do not create gameplay on their own, but as a game designer, you have to solve the chicken and the egg problem by inventing both from scratch every time.
I started out in computer science and focused heavily on how to make the machine do what I wanted. However, it took many years working with game designers to start to form my own philosophy about why I wanted the things.
A strong understanding of both your audience and games is absolutely required before you can direct the gameplay so heavily. However, indie and solo work don’t give you the time to master every piece.
If channels like Mix and Jam are all about unpacking single mechanics, then we have yet to see an equivalent for gameplay design.
However, I am taking signups for my upcoming course on video game mechanics, which I specifically created to help provide a bridge into that role since there are no other resources out there for this. Sign up for the waitlist here if this is interesting to you!
Related Game Design Roles to Apply For

If you’re interested in gameplay design, keep in mind that many other roles fall under this umbrella, including:
- Content designer
- Quest designer
- Class designer
- Mechanics and combat designer
- Game controls designer
If you’re contemplating starting your career in game design, first explore and understand the differences between different types of game designers and figure out which ones suit you best.
That said, the taxonomy of game designers is still a work in progress, and as a result, the exact title and role is rarely consistent from studio to studio.
So don’t just go by the job title, please read the whole job description and see what you’ll actually be doing.
For instance, a junior design role with the gameplay designer title is most likely really a mechanics design role (though this might still be a good starting point).
Hopefully, as we learn, the industry as a whole will use more accurate and consistent language.
Career Path, Progression, and Potential
This can vary from studio to studio, but the average career path to a gameplay designer role typically look like this:
- Start in a QA role. Some times you can get directly into a junior designer role.
- Progress to a junior content design role where you work on smaller and fundamental pieces of gameplay on average for 5 years (unless the studio is well structured to mentor junior designers).
- Once you understood and mastered all the interconnected pieces in the context of the studio’s team and game, then you’re qualified for the gameplay designer role.
- Then you progress to the lead and principal roles where you’re entrusted with bigger responsibilities.
The only professional “gameplay designer” roles available are mid to senior level in large video game productions because no serious studio will entrust bigger responsibilities that determines the larger parts or entire part of their players’ interactive experience to an entry level or junior designer with little experience.
That’s why these roles are very rare and competitive for a gameplay designer to be hired outside of a studio unless you’ve held a similar role on another title or if you just launch your own game, which is not unheard of.
For example, my colleague Chris McEntee had designed Rayman Legends, so it was an easy transition for him to step into the lead gameplay design role for Ori and the Will of the Wisps.
How Much Does a Gameplay Designer Make?
The average salary for a gameplay designer is about $115,000 a year (according to Glassdoor).
Final Thoughts on Gameplay Designer Role
As a gameplay designer, every skill I’ve developed—programming, game engine creation, graphic design, UI design, rules crafting, technical design, tool design, leadership — has made me a better implementer and team member.
The more I understand how every piece of the design fits together, the better I can support every team member with diverse skills across the board, and as a result the better we can deliver unforgettable gameplay to our players.
It’s been a long journey from my start in computer science, and I honestly thought it would take a lot less time to get here, but it’s a job that requires a level of passion, commitment, and dedication that no amount of tutorials can ever convey.
If you want this role, you need to deeply love it and be willing to do the work to bring the best out of the people around you.