Level design is one of the most visible disciplines of game design, since a level designer’s work unites all the mechanics, obstacles, and artwork into the final experience. Level design happens to be a poorly understood discipline by the general public, too. Level designers focus on different aspects of the level depending on the studio or subfield, from highly specialized roles in AAA studios like technical level designers to a much looser set of responsibilities in indie studios. Read on for a no-nonsense, focused description of a level designer’s responsibilities from a working professional, and get some follow-up insight about a level designer’s career path.
What is the definition of a game level designer?
A game level designer is a game developer who decides the layout, pacing, and difficulty of a level. A level designer specializes in player psychology, achieving the experience set out in the game’s core pillars. Like other game designers, a level designer is focused on the design, not the programming or implementation. Advanced computer science skills aren’t necessary to be a great designer. The responsibilities of a level designer, and whether they strictly focus on levels’ layouts or dip their toes into scripting and art, depend on the studio.
Level design pulls together disciplines such as art, lighting, scripting, and narrative design. A story-driven game requires significant cooperation between narrative and level design, while a gameplay-driven action game sees the level designer spending more time with the gameplay designers. The needs of teams and projects change, so level designers in some studios focus on designing the level layout alone, while other level designers work on scripting, or tweak the lighting and artwork. The level design/artist combo is more common at smaller and indie studios, where each developer has a larger responsibility over their part of the game.
A level designer in most cases constructs the layout by thinking about the intended experience and pacing. Understanding the player’s perspective is key here. The designer needs to know every way players react to situations and choose paths through the level. Level designers work to ensure the experience is tuned to each player type, no matter what approach they choose.
Level designers don’t always have a computer science background or extensive experience with programming languages. Visual solutions like Blueprints in Unreal exist so designers are able to create logic for their levels without knowing how to code. Instead, a level designer is responsible for making fun and engaging levels that fit the core pillars of the game. Unless, of course, the core pillars conflict with fun, like in Dark Souls.
What does a game level designer do?
A game level designer starts projects by planning out levels and building blockouts, moving into closer collaboration with the art team as the level arrives at its final form. Responsibilities include tweaking layouts and communicating with other departments to ensure development is on track. Designers at each stage give their prototypes to co-workers and playtesters to get feedback and iterate on the design.
Level designers start with low-tech solutions. The early ideation phase of a level is the period with the most unbounded creativity. Designers aren’t at risk of having to recreate assets or losing potential features of a level to time or budget constraints. Rearranging the order of encounters, changing the number, or implementing feedback on a design is much easier when no resources have been dedicated yet. At this stage, paper diagrams or Miro boards are a classic way of getting ideas out there.
A level designer then creates a blockout. A blockout is a 3D layout of the level made out of placeholder objects. The environment is made out of primitive shapes such as cubes, planes, and spheres. Enemies and interactable objects are all placeholders, store assets, or holdovers from previous games. The goal is to get a playable prototype out as quickly as possible because feedback and iteration are more crucial than perfection.
The blockout process most often takes place directly in the engine’s editor to get the level into this playable state. Game engines have BSPs or other primitive objects available. The designer needs to be more familiar than most members of the team with the engine editor, where to place triggers, and how to script encounters so they’re able to make a working prototype. Once the art assets are in, they work with playtesters and the art team to make sure the final art executes on the level’s vision.
Collaboration is a large part of what all game designers do, as game design is a multi-disciplinary field. Designers lay out a blueprint that artists need to follow, programmers need to understand, and producers need to be sold on. The blockout isn’t able to speak, so the designer needs to be meeting with the art team, reviewing their work, and checking how it looks in the engine to ensure the art supports and elevates the original intention.
A lack of collaboration is guaranteed to result in problems. A level designer creates a blockout with a large wall in it, for example. The art team, if it isn’t aware of its purpose, has the choice to make it a brick wall, a window, or a chain-link fence. The art team without context doesn’t know whether a barrier is just to keep players out or ought to block line of sight too.
The most surprising thing I discovered about level design when I started is just how much it changes from studio to studio. The title is the same, but one studio asks its level designers to do much of the level scripting, while a different studio has the level designers focus strictly on level geometry. These titles aren’t hard and fast categories, and the position of technical level designer makes the situation even more variable.
What is a technical level designer?
A technical level designer is the person who supports the level design team with their knowledge of computer graphics and development tools. The responsibilities of the position vary, if a studio has a technical level designer at all. Technical designer Max Pears of Ubisoft said that he was simply the member of the level design team with the most computer science experience. The core component, though, is supporting the rest of the design team with their knowledge.
Optimization is one way technical level designers support the team. A technical level designer has a deeper understanding of the target platform’s limitations: how many draw calls they’re able to make use of, how many enemies are allowed to be in the level, and so on.
A tech designer who focuses on optimization builds the rules and requirements for the rest of the design team to follow. Max Pears belongs to this category, as he describes in an interview on TimDoesLevelDesign. Pears told level designers on Ubisoft’s The Division how far away side missions were able to be from main missions, what variables the creators of prefabs needed to expose so they worked in all districts, and how many respawning waves a level designer was capable of including.
A second type of level designer builds tools for other designers to use. These level designers do have experience with computer science. Examples of tools include plugins for automatically creating buildings, stairs, or other common structures in levels.
How to become a level designer?
To become a level designer, practice building up your skills, get a degree if it provides opportunities to collaborate with other devs, and create a portfolio that shows off the skills you’ve learned. Design is a skill that’s easier to show than tell, as a degree from a game design school doesn’t show that a designer has the collaboration skills for the job or an ability to bring a project to completion. Professional training is important, but so is getting started practicing right away.
Successful game designers have practiced making games for years before they begin a career path in the field. LocalThunk, creator of Balatro, made card games for his friends to play for nearly a decade before releasing his breakout hit. Little did LocalThunk know, he was developing an eye for design and ability to iterate based on feedback through his small experiments.
A level designer has no strict educational requirements, but game designers tend to come to the field with a bachelor’s degree. 80% of respondents to the IGDA Developer Satisfaction Survey had a bachelor’s degree or other secondary education. Designers don’t always have a degree in game design, though. Jason Bay on Game Industry Career Guide found that more than 30% of developers he had worked with in his career had a Computer Science or Humanities degree.
Going to game design schools does provide networking and collaboration opportunities. Getting practice pitching an idea to advisors, working in a team, and creating a finished product show crucial skills required for a game designer. The University of Southern California, University of Utah, DigiPen Institute of Technology, and the Rochester Institute of Technology require students to work together to complete a game project with other majors, so these schools are the most effective for portfolio building and demonstrating collaboration skills to future employers.
The degrees and skills are only one piece of the puzzle, as having an effective portfolio is what filters out many potential job candidates. Level design isn’t the same thing as art or programming, as the designer is selling a process, not a product. The portfolio needs to show works in progress, the ideas and frameworks used to develop those ideas, and an ability to incorporate feedback into the process.
A level design portfolio shows the step-by-step process of how the level designer in question works. Each project in a portfolio tends to start with 2D plans and sketches, low-tech maps which show the major events in a level, the intended intensity of each encounter, and how players move from one event to another. A blockout in a 3D engine of your choice shows how this map looks in 3D space.
An effective portfolio includes materials beyond just the level itself. Documentation describing the idea behind the level, the emotions the player ought to feel, or the intended pacing curve show that this designer knows how to communicate their vision clearly.
Interviews are the final step before getting a design test or meeting the team. I suggest junior designers review their favorite levels beforehand, both ones they’ve played and ones they’ve created. A common interview question is to ask what the interviewee’s favorite level is, and what they want to change about it. The interviewer then follows up by questioning why the interviewee enjoyed or didn’t enjoy specific levels in the portfolio, so reviewing it before an interview is important. Being unable to answer questions about your own work isn’t the best look; a little preparation goes a long way.
What are game level designer requirements?
Game level designer requirements include strong teamwork and communication skills, a well-presented portfolio, and experience with game creation tools. The final skill here isn’t as essential as showing the previous two skills, but knowledge of a game engine gives the studio assurance because they don’t need to spend as much time onboarding their next teammate.
Level designers require soft skills such as an ability to communicate proactively and across disciplines. Portfolio pieces created as a part of a team are ideal for showing these skills in action. Game jams are a common way to get practice because they put developers in touch with each other and offer the chance to build a finished project together.
Having side projects to show off is another key requirement for a level design job. Activision’s level design postings explicitly mention indie games, card games, or board games as examples of a candidate’s skill set. These projects show examples of the applicant’s design process in action.
Experience with industry standard game engines is a huge plus for level design positions. Learning through side projects is already a crucial step towards getting a design job, so getting experience with industry standard game engines goes hand in hand with building a portfolio. Unreal and Unity have the largest market share by far. Knowledge of both engines makes a designer a versatile addition to the team. Using any engine shows knowledge of the game design workflow, so even GameMaker is a solid starting point.
Experience with art is a bonus but not a requirement for level design. A common misconception is that level designers create level art, but they only need to have a general idea of the colors that guide players and how people’s eyes travel over compositions. Studying classic paintings helps understand these principles of composition. The ability to create beautiful art isn’t necessary, though, as the art team later translates the diagrams and blockouts into a finished product.
How to gain level designer experience?
To gain level designer experience, join game jams, reconstruct levels from your favorite games, or make mods for existing games. Making experiences with in-game editors like Halo’s Forge is even enough to show an aspiring level designer knows how to create engaging experiences, no matter the toolset.
Game jams are one of the most common ways to practice and build portfolio pieces. Jams get many eyes on your work or even give designers an opportunity to work with others on a team. Ludum Dare and the GMTK game jam both receive thousands of submissions and allow for teams or solo creations. In a similar vein, Blocktober is a less official opportunity to get feedback on level design specifically. Level designers share blockouts they’ve made over the course of October each year, and sharing them in a forum like the Design Den is an opportunity to get more eyes on a design.
Reconstructing levels from well-known games is a great way to gain experience and show off an ability to consume games critically. In reconstructing the best the field has to offer, an aspiring level designer learns what shapes were used to draw players’ eyes, when designers strategically hemmed in or opened up spaces, and how the original designers paced out the level. I’ve done the same with The Last of Us and Titanfall 2 on my website. Other level designers such as Abdul Banglee have created levels inspired by a favorite game instead. Banglee’s Fort Azami is a prototype of a camp in Ghost of Tsushima.
Modding frees a level designer to focus on the level layout and pacing instead of other features that belong to other disciplines in a studio environment. A level designer in a studio doesn’t worry about designing player movement or enemies, nor are they the artists making the level pretty. Modding emulates the studio in this aspect, with the designer free to remix and arrange the art, obstacles, and mechanics from an existing game into a new experience, all while still retaining the identity of the original game.
Dana Nightingale, for example, started her career by organizing a community website and building fan levels for the original Thief. She went on to become a designer at Arkane and responsible for the Dishonored 2 level Clockwork Mansion, a level famous for its intricate design.
Focusing too much on the details and getting all the art, narrative, and mechanics right in these solo projects is a common mistake I see in new designers. A level designer isn’t expected to be a master of all these disciplines. Game jams and small projects encourage newcomers to focus on what is important, getting a playtestable level ready. Iterating quickly, getting feedback, then iterating again is much more important than creating a beautiful or perfect design in one shot.
I highly recommend collaborating with and learning from other designers. Joining the indie studio Rubyshark coming out of my program at Michigan State was a crucial early experience for me. I had the opportunity to work with others, grow my skills and create an impressive level for them. Getting that experience is just as valuable as having the schooling to back it up.
Is level designer a good career?
A level designer is a good career for those passionate about making games and meeting other people who have that same passion, but it’s not a stable career. Game developers of all types are facing layoffs in increasing numbers these days. Many studios have been struggling to make returns on their investments. The closure of studios like Bluepoint is a reminder that designers aren’t always safe in their position. To discuss the positive aspects first, though, level design is a creative discipline that allows its members to communicate frequently with passionate individuals in a variety of fields.
A level designer needs to accept the realities of working with a large number of people. Level designers aren’t lone geniuses that put their head down and stew with their ideas for a week before a level leaps out fully formed, to full applause from the team. A clear level blockout is one step in the process, but the other teams are going to have questions about what is or isn’t acceptable in the finished level. The final product is a result of collaboration and feedback with playtesters and other designers alike. If this environment sounds ideal, game design is the right fit.
Level designers have a position where they’re able to use their creative visual skills without needing to be professional artists. A designer needs to understand what colors and shapes draw the player’s eye, and how to compose a scene in a visually interesting way. The artists fill in the details, but the level designer is the first to decide the contours of a level and how color guides the player.
The field of level design isn’t ideal for those needing a stable career. Crytek laid off 15% of their employees in 2025, and EA laid off unknown numbers of Battlefield staff in March 2026, just months after Battlefield 6’s record breaking release. Developers need to be prepared to rely on their network to find their next job. In choosing to select a AAA or indie job next, designers often think about how long they expect to stay and opportunities for mentorship and career progression.
The career path for a level designer offers room to grow through the ranks at large studios. A beginner designer in this environment spends one or a few years at an entry-level role, which uses different terminology from studio to studio. The positions junior, assistant, and associate game designers are all in use. Beginner designers have ownership of small pieces of a level that a senior designer owns and supports them with. Once a designer moves into a mid-level or senior role, they have the opportunity to own parts of the game themselves and earn a higher salary.
Level designers in Indie studios have a tradeoff of less stability for more creative control. The original Hades has five credits for Design, but no more specific titles for level design, combat design, or systems design. Some designers are credited with multiple positions, like Greg Kasavin as Design & Writing. A level designer in a small studio dips their toes into many responsibilities. This ecosystem isn’t always ideal for a beginner developer, since there’s more autonomy and less mentorship. Many designers start in a AA or AAA studio and move to indie later for more creative freedom.
What are the working conditions for a level designer?
The working conditions for a level designer are similar to most designers, requiring significant commitment the closer a game gets to shipping. The main concern newcomers have is the level of crunch they’re likely to experience and the risk of burning out before getting too far.
Crunch is the first term people think of in connection with game designers’ working conditions. Crunch is the period of excessive working hours that occurs close to shipping, when timelines and budget constraints prevent the game from getting delayed any further. Not every work week includes excessive overtime, but, like most jobs, there are harder and easier times. The majority of surveyed developers in the IGDA didn’t receive overtime pay for crunch, either receiving time off after crunch or no compensation. The survey included only a few hundred developers, an important limitation to keep in mind.
My personal experience is that the level of crunch depends on the studio. I’ve been able to get promotions within studios with a solid work-life balance, only working extra hours when I feel like it. The crunch I’ve experienced in my 5 years in the industry has only involved mandatory overtime once, and that was one 50-hour week, not the months of seven-day-a-week crunch that some developers have experienced.
There’s no one rule for the working conditions of a game designer, as some studios treat their employees well and others demand far too much of them. Game design is a highly interpersonal job, so the specific personalities of co-workers affect the day-to-day, too. Finding a fitting company culture and work-life balance is a challenge, but a beginner’s first studio doesn’t have to be their home forever.
The following list summarizes the pros and cons of entering the level design workforce.
- Level designers work in a field they’re passionate about with other creative and like-minded individuals.
- The designer community is close-knit and supportive.
- Level designer working hours are full-time with expected overtime depending on the studio.
- The stress of layoffs is a real concern in the current industry climate.
- Finding a studio that’s a better fit is more stressful when the job market is less stable.
