Senior/Lead Gameplay Animator - 3C & FPS

<p><strong>About the Role</strong><br>We are looking for a Senior or Lead Gameplay Animator with strong AAA FPS experience to help shape responsive, compelling character movement and moment-to-moment gameplay.<br>With a focus on <strong>Character, Controls, and Camera (3C)</strong>, you will combine animation craft with practical implementation skills to develop features from early prototypes through final in-game polish. Working closely with gameplay designers, programmers, and technical animators, you will help ensure that character animation, player input, and camera behavior work together to deliver a cohesive player experience.<br>This is a hands-on role with meaningful ownership of gameplay animation features and opportunities to influence the systems and workflows behind them.</p> <p><strong>What You’ll Do</strong></p> <ul> <li>Own gameplay animation features from concept to completion, including reference gathering, prototyping, asset creation, engine integration, debugging, and polish.</li> <li>Create high-quality character movement and action animations, covering locomotion, directional changes, stance transitions, traversal, and combat interactions.</li> <li>Contribute to first-person animation and its relationship with full-body movement, weapon handling, and camera feedback.</li> <li>Partner with designers and programmers to refine movement responsiveness, action timing, transitions, and interruption behavior while preserving believable weight and physicality.</li> <li>Build and refine animation graphs, state machines, blend setups, and animation layers within the project’s engine and tools.</li> <li>Use keyframe animation and motion-capture workflows to deliver animation that meets gameplay and visual requirements.</li> <li>Evaluate your work in playable builds, identify the causes of animation issues, and collaborate across disciplines to resolve them.</li> <li>Work with technical animation and engineering teams to improve workflows and address runtime, asset, and production constraints.</li> <li>For Lead-level appointments, guide feature planning, establish animation quality benchmarks, provide actionable feedback, and mentor teammates while continuing to create and implement animation directly.</li> </ul> <p><strong>What You’ll Bring</strong></p> <ul> <li>Proven experience creating and implementing gameplay animation for AAA first-person shooters, with clear ownership of features or animation systems.</li> <li>A strong portfolio demonstrating body mechanics, weight, timing, posing, and a clear understanding of responsive gameplay animation.</li> <li>Practical experience taking animation assets into a game engine and iterating on their behavior in playable builds.</li> <li>Working knowledge of animation graphs, state machines, blending, additive animation, and gameplay-driven transitions.</li> <li>An understanding of how character movement, player controls, and camera behavior influence each other and shape game feel.</li> <li>Proficiency in professional animation tools, with experience in keyframe animation and motion-capture editing.</li> <li>The ability to investigate animation problems, explain their likely causes, and work with design and engineering partners to deliver effective solutions.</li> <li>Strong ownership, clear communication, and a consistent record of delivering work within production constraints.</li> </ul> <p><strong>What Will Set You Apart</strong></p> <ul> <li>Hands-on experience on recent AAA FPS productions with a high standard of player movement, first-person animation, and combat responsiveness.</li> <li>Direct involvement in establishing or evolving 3C animation systems, particularly from early development through production.</li> <li>Additional experience on AAA action or action-adventure games involving sophisticated traversal, melee combat, or character interactions.</li> <li>A technical animation background that enables you to understand and resolve issues across animation assets, runtime systems, and gameplay logic.</li> <li>Experience with techniques such as inverse kinematics, motion matching, procedural animation, motion warping, or animation retargeting.</li> <li>Scripting or tool-development experience that improves animation workflows and iteration speed.</li> <li>Experience maintaining consistency between first-person presentation and third-person character animation.</li> </ul> <p><strong>Senior / Lead Expectations</strong><br><strong>Senior:</strong> Independently own complex animation features, make sound creative and technical decisions, and drive implementation and polish with cross-disciplinary partners.<br><strong>Lead:</strong> Combine strong individual delivery with the ability to guide others, align animation work with gameplay goals, and maintain quality across interconnected features.<br>We also welcome high-potential candidates with relevant production experience and exceptional portfolios who demonstrate the ability to grow into broader ownership. Level will reflect demonstrated capability and contribution.<br><strong>Location & Working Arrangement</strong><br>Relocation to China is preferred. Remote arrangements may be considered based on location, time-zone compatibility, and collaboration needs.</p> <table> <tbody> <tr> <td width="553"> <p><strong>Commitment to Equal Opportunity:</strong><br>NetEase is an Equal Opportunity Employer comm