Professional Work

Award-winning Lead Game Designer
10+ years delivering AAA gameplay, specializing in player abilities, combat systems, AI behaviors, and Unreal Engine 5 tooling.
  • Lead gameplay designer with 10+ years delivering AAA systems, combat, and player experience.
  • Systems Design Lead on Asgard’s Wrath 2 (100+ hour action RPG; multiple GOTY awards).
  • Built UE5 editor tools adopted studio-wide to accelerate iteration and standardize workflows.
Featured Work:
Systems Design Lead
  • Led 15+ designers across combat, progression, enemies, bosses, and companions.
  • Shipped 100+ hour AAA VR action RPG (IGN 10/10, multiple GOTY awards).
  • Promoted to Lead Designer after this project, overseeing Combat & Systems teams and partnering closely with Narrative and Level Design.
Unreal editor tools • Blueprint frameworks • Pipeline automation
  • Built Unreal in-editor tools for validation, metrics, automation, and content workflows.
  • Created reusable frameworks that improved designer iteration speed and team consistency.
  • Drove studio-wide adoption via documentation, training, and workflow standardization.
Additional Professional Projects:
Senior Designer
  • Owned 5 critical-path levels (including early tutorials), concept-to-ship.
  • Led design for 2 major boss encounters with cross-discipline execution.
  • Delivered combat + puzzle + narrative integration (88 Metacritic).
Designer
  • Stepped in to rebuild the entire combat suite in 6 months after prior work was scrapped.
  • Owned enemy + boss design with Engineering, Animation, and VFX.
  • Delivered 100% of combat content under deadline; turned around the project.
Leadership & Culture
Alongside shipping critically acclaimed titles like Asgard’s Wrath 2, I’m deeply invested in mentoring designers, building healthy teams, and fostering collaborative development cultures.
Current Focus
I’m currently seeking Lead / Director-level roles focused on systems design, combat design, or technical design, where I can combine creative direction with scalable gameplay frameworks and studio-wide tooling to create epic and emotionally-charged gameplay experiences.
Open to both hands-on leadership and pillar ownership on large-scale AAA projects.
Interested in collaborating? Reach me at nickbvollmer@gmail.com or on LinkedIn.
Nick Vollmer — Lead Gameplay Designer | Combat Designer | Technical Designer