Senior Creative Director, New Games

Craft:

Job Description:

As Senior Creative Director, you will own the creative and design vision for a brand-new Candy Crush game — defining the player experience, gameplay direction, and emotional core of what will become King's next global hit.

You will guide the team in crafting joyful, meaningful, and innovative play, ensuring that every feature, system, and moment reflects our creative ambition and delivers lasting fun to millions of players worldwide.

This role combines visionary leadership with strong product sense: you'll define what the game should feel like, why players will love it, and how the creative direction connects to sustainable business success.

• Define and champion the overall creative vision and design philosophy for the new Candy Crush game.
• Create a clear, inspiring north star that guides all gameplay, content, and visual design decisions.
• Balance innovation with approachability, ensuring the game feels fresh yet familiar to the Candy Crush audience.
• Shape the game's tone, style, and emotional engagement — from visual language to player journey and rewards.

• Lead the game design discipline across core loop, mechanics, progression, and meta systems.
• Collaborate with UX, Art, and Tech to ensure cohesive and delightful player experiences.
• Drive design decisions through prototyping, testing, and iteration, with a clear understanding of what makes games fun and sticky.
• Partner with analytics and insights to validate design hypotheses, connecting creativity with measurable impact.

• Ensure that player joy and engagement sit at the heart of every decision.
• Establish creative success criteria — emotional engagement, flow, clarity, and satisfaction — and track progress through player testing.
• Lead the definition of creative KPIs alongside the GM and Data teams (e.g., retention, satisfaction, NPS).
• Review and guide all major creative milestones (concepts, prototypes, soft launch builds).

• Serve as a core member of the leadership team, collaborating with Tech, Product, and Art leads to align creative direction with technical feasibility and business goals.
• Build, mentor, and inspire a team of Game Designers, UX Designers, and Narrative Designers.
• Foster a creative, inclusive, and high-trust environment where ideas are tested, shared, and refined collaboratively.
• Present creative direction and progress to executives and stakeholders, articulating both player and business impact.

• Drive innovation in puzzle mechanics, meta progression, and player engagement systems to push the genre forward.
• Champion experimentation and creative risk-taking, grounded in player insight and data.
• Contribute to King's creative craft community, sharing learnings and elevating design excellence across studios.

• A compelling, aligned creative vision for the new Candy Crush game.
• Delivery of high-quality gameplay and design experiences that achieve key KPIs:
• Creative coherence across all aspects of the product (gameplay, UI/UX, art, tone).
• Building and maintaining a high-performing design team with clear ownership and accountability.
• Successful creative validation through internal and external playtests prior to soft launch.

• 10+ years of experience in game design and creative leadership, with at least 5 in a senior or director-level role.
• Proven record of defining and shipping successful free-to-play mobile games, ideally in the casual or puzzle space.
• Deep understanding of game systems, player motivation, economy design, and engagement loops.
• Strong creative sensibility combined with data fluency and player empathy.
• Excellent communication and storytelling skills — able to inspire teams and stakeholders alike.
• Experience building and mentoring creative teams across multiple crafts.
• Passionate about creating joyful, accessible, and emotionally resonant player experiences.

• Believes in collaboration over hierarchy — empowering creative voices while driving toward clarity.
• Thrives in fast-moving, iterative environments where ideas evolve through play and feedback.
• Balances bold creativity with pragmatism, understanding how to deliver both fun and results.
• Embodies King's values: clarity, trust, and delivering success together.

In short

this is a rare opportunity to define the creative heart of the next generation of Candy Crush.

As Senior Creative Director, you will inspire a world-class team to craft an experience that's innovative, delightful, and unforgettable — a game that players around the world will fall in love with.

About King

With a mission of Making the World Playful, King is a leading interactive entertainment company with more than 20 years of history of delivering some of the world's most iconic games in the mobile gaming industry, including the world-famous Candy Crush franchise, as well as other mobile game hits such as Farm Heroes Saga. King games are played by more than 200 million monthly active users. King, part of Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), has Kingsters in Stockholm, Malmö, London, Barcelona, Berlin, Dublin, San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles and Malta. More information can be found at  or by following us on LinkedIn, @lifeatking on Instagram, or @king_games on X.