At Couch Heroes, we’re exploring new ground for the MMO genre. In a world where fantasy and ancient technology intertwine, players explore shattered realms, grapple across verticality, solve puzzles, and push back corruption, with progression driven by player expression and discovery.We envision creating a bridge between the gamers of the 80s all the way to the gamers of today, creating a space where both coexist and journey together. We’re developing in Unreal Engine, in early production, with a team spanning multiple countries.
We’re remote-first, based in the UK, and scaling to support a multi-year live-service roadmap. We value autonomy, curiosity, and collaborative ownership, and we’re looking for creators who want to help build something from the ground up. Sound like your kind of thing? We should talk.
A world only matters if players care what happens in it. The history of the shattered realms, the cultures that endured them, the corruption pressing in at the edges, and the quests that carry players through all of it are the domain of narrative design. We need a Lead Narrative Designer who can own the story of our MMO and build the team that will deliver worldbuilding, quest narrative, dialogue, and the systems that bring story to players at MMO scale.
You will report to the Game Director and take ownership of a narrative discipline that is just beginning: one narrative designer is in place today. You will set creative direction for narrative, stay hands-on with worldbuilding, quest writing, and dialogue, and grow the function by hiring and managing narrative designers and writers as production ramps.
We are in early production. The world's history, factions, characters, tone of voice, and the structures for delivering story across zones and quests are still being defined and iterated. You will be making narrative decisions that define the player experience for years to come.
Own the narrative vision for the game: world history, factions, cultures, characters, and tone of voice. Build and maintain the lore bible that keeps the world coherent as the team and content scale.
Design the structures that deliver story to players: main story arcs, zone narratives, side content, and the vignettes that reward exploration and discovery. Set the bar for narrative depth, clarity, and player-facing quality.
Stay hands-on with the craft: write and edit dialogue, quest text, item descriptions, and in-world documents. Maintain a style guide that keeps the voice consistent across every writer who touches the game.
Design narrative for MMO scale: stories that hold up when thousands of players share the world, when content is experienced out of order and in groups, and when the story must persist and evolve across a multi-year live roadmap.
Collaborate with art and level design on environmental storytelling, so the world tells its story through spaces, props, and atmosphere, not just words.
Work closely with game design to ensure narrative and gameplay systems reinforce each other: progression, social systems, and player expression mechanics should carry narrative meaning, and story should give systems their stakes.
Define the narrative pipeline and tooling with engineering: dialogue systems, quest scripting workflows, branching logic, and text handling that is ready for localisation from day one.
Work with audio on voice implementation planning, including casting needs, script formats, and VO production timelines, even if voice recording is a later production milestone.
Use playtest observations and player feedback to validate narrative decisions and drive iteration. Champion evidence of what players actually feel over assumptions about what the story says.
Collaborate with production to manage scope, schedules, and task breakdowns for narrative work. Contribute to milestone planning, sprint scoping, and capacity forecasting.
Manage and develop the studio's existing narrative designer from day one: set priorities, assign work, and run regular 1:1s focused on progress, career development, and honest feedback.
Build the narrative team as production ramps: define the roles the discipline needs, contribute to job descriptions, review writing tests, and lead interview loops.
Lead performance reviews and goal setting aligned to production milestones and individual development plans.
Represent the narrative discipline in cross-discipline leads meetings, production planning, and resourcing conversations.
Foster a culture of craft rigour, honest critique, and player-first storytelling across everyone who writes for the game.
7+ years in game development, with at least one shipped title in a narrative design or game writing role.
2+ years of direct people management: running 1:1s, setting goals, conducting performance reviews, and developing team members.
Strong portfolio or writing samples demonstrating narrative design depth: worldbuilding, quest design, and branching dialogue, with documentation that shows design thinking as well as prose quality.
Experience designing narrative for multiplayer or online games, with an understanding of how story is delivered when players experience content non-linearly, socially, and at scale.
Strong documentation and communication skills. You can write a lore entry an artist can build from and a quest spec an engineer can implement without constant clarification.
Experience collaborating across disciplines to ship integrated narrative content.
Experience shipping at least one MMO or persistent online world from production through live service.
Experience with branching dialogue tools or narrative middleware such as articy:draft, Ink, or proprietary equivalents.
Experience with quest scripting or narrative implementation in Unreal Engine Blueprints.
Experience planning VO production and localisation for large text volumes.
Experience writing for live-service content cadences: seasonal arcs, world events, and evolving world states.
You lead by investing in people, and you are comfortable starting with a team of one. You find genuine satisfaction in developing the writers around you and in building the function itself.
You write for the player, not for the lore bible. You care about what players feel in the moment, not just what is canonically true.
You believe the best game stories are told through play. Dialogue and cutscenes are tools, not the destination.
You are comfortable working through ambiguity. Early production means the world is not fully defined yet, and you see that as an opportunity to shape the right answer.
You balance creative ambition with production pragmatism. You know when to explore and when to commit.
You work autonomously in a remote environment, proactively keeping your team aligned and your stakeholders informed.
Location: Remote-first
Type: Full-time
Start: ASAP
