Senior VFX Artist - League of Legends

As part of the Real-Time VFX team, you’ll design and help implement the sleek, dynamic and dramatic special effects that add atmosphere and depth to gameplay. With your experience, you’ll create aesthetically astounding visual effects that communicate essential game information. You’ll use your artistic and technical skills to breathe life into undead spells, channel primal emotions and capture the essence of hundreds of champions.

As a Senior VFX Artist on League of Legends, you will drive the creation of visually striking and gameplay-clear real-time effects across a variety of in-game, around-game systems and environments. Your work will contribute to a constantly evolving long-standing game experience, blending atmospheric world-building with clarity-driven design. You’ll collaborate closely with design, engineering, and product partners to ensure that visual effects support both gameplay functionality and a cohesive artistic vision. You will report to the VFX Art Lead and contribute as both an individual artist and a mentor. You’ll help set artistic direction, push visual quality, and refine processes and pipelines for scalable content delivery.

Responsibilities:

• Design and implement real-time VFX that bring the map, champions, and systemic gameplay elements to life
• Create immersive environmental effects for the map
• Design VFX for use out of game, supporting transitions, selections, feedback states, and thematic immersion in a way that feels fresh but rooted in League’s iconic visual language
• Balance visual spectacle with gameplay clarity
• Partner with cross-discipline leads to ensure technical feasibility, aesthetic quality, and performance requirements
• Provide mentorship, feedback, and guidance to mid-level and junior artists on the team
• Help define and uphold VFX standards and documentation for clarity, performance, and style across systems
• Contribute to building and evolving tools and workflows that empower the team to deliver quality quickly

Required Qualifications:

• 5+ years of professional experience creating stylized, real-time VFX in games
• Deep understanding of VFX fundamentals: timing, motion, shape language, color theory, and impact readability
• Proficient in VFX creation using tools such as Maya, Photoshop, and various game engines
• Experience optimizing VFX for performance and clarity in a competitive or system-heavy game context
• Ability to think both artistically and technically to solve complex visual communication challenges
• Strong collaboration and communication skills, especially in multi-disciplinary environments

Desired Qualifications:

• Experience creating effects for maps, UI systems, or game clients
• Hands-on experience with shader pipelines in various game engines, including custom material creation and optimization
• Familiarity with League of Legends and its visual and gameplay clarity principles
• Experience mentoring or leading junior VFX artists
• Comfortable with custom toolsets and pipelines; able to help improve and adapt workflows

For this role, you'll find success through craft expertise and a collaborative spirit that prioritizes the delight of players. We will look at your past studies and experience, but for this role, we also look for dedicated people with a personal relationship with games. If you embody player empathy and care about players' experiences, this is the role for you!

Our Perks:

Riot focuses on work/life balance, shown by our open paid time off policy and other perks such as flexible work schedules. We offer medical, dental, and life insurance, parental leave for you, your spouse/domestic partner, and children, and a 401k with company match. Check out our benefits pages for more information.

At Riot Games, we put players first . That mission drives every decision in our quest to create games and experiences that make it better to be a player. Whether you’re working directly on a new player-facing experience or you’re supporting the company as a whole, everyone at Riot is part of our mission. And just like in our games, we’re better when we work together. Our goal is to create collaborative teams where you are empowered to bring your unique perspective everyday. If that sounds like the kind of place you want to work, we’re looking forward to your application.

It’s our policy to provide equal employment opportunity for all applicants and members of Riot Games, Inc. Riot Games makes reasonable accommodations for handicapped and disabled Rioters and does not unlawfully discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, age, handicap, veteran status, marital status, criminal history, or any other category protected by applicable federal and state law. We consider for employment all qualified applicants, including those with criminal histories, in a manner consistent with applicable federal, state and local law, including the California Fair Chance Act, the City of Los Angeles Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring Ordinance, the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers, the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, and the Washington Fair Chance Act.

Per the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance, the following core duties may create a basis for disqualifying candidates with relevant criminal histories:

• Safeguarding confidential and sensitive Company data
• Communication with others, including Rioters and third parties such as vendors, and/or players, including minors
• Accessing Company assets, secure digital systems, and networks
• Ensuring a safe interactive environment for players and other Rioters

These duties are directly related to essential operations, safety, trust, and compliance obligations within our organization. Please note that job duties may evolve based on business needs and additional responsibilities may be assigned as necessary to maintain operational efficiency and security.

• (Los Angeles Only) Base salary range between $150,000.00 - $209,600.00 USD + incentive compensation + equity + 401K with company match + medical, dental, vision, and life insurance + short and long-term disability + open PTO.