Environment Artist

About Techtive Games

Techtive Games is a Germany-based video game developer creating Ardem, an open-world survival game. Built by former modding veterans, the studio combines AA-level ambition with an independent mindset to push development practices forward and build immersive worlds built to be played, modified, and expanded.

We're looking for an Environment Artist to join our team as we move into full production on our debut game Ardem, an open world survival game developed in Unreal Engine 5.

In this role, your focus is asset production, with a strong emphasis on architecture and modularity. Our world artists build Ardem's world —> you create what they build it with: modular architecture kits, bespoke landmark structures, and the environmental assets that make the world feel believable and lived-in. You won't be doing level design yourself, but you need the instincts of someone who could — assets only work if they're made with world-building in mind. At Techtive, we believe in a creative workflow where everyone contributes to the final look and feel of the world. It's a team effort: you'll work closely with World Art, Tech Art, and 3D Art, using cutting-edge UE5 tech to push visuals to new heights.

One thing we care about a lot: we're hiring from our community. We want people who actually play survival games — not as market research, but because it's your genre. If you know from hundreds of hours in the genre why a base location feels right, why a ruin tells a story, or why clutter placement can make or break immersion, you already understand half the job. That's also why we'd love it if you share your Steam profile with your application — not as a gate, we're just genuinely curious where your gaming interests lie and how much they overlap with what we're building.

We value creativity, ownership, and personal growth. Rather than working through rigid ticket pipelines, our team members are encouraged to actively shape systems, improve workflows, and grow together not only on Ardem, but on future projects as well.

If you love building worlds players want to get lost in — and you've survived a few of them yourself — we'd love to hear from you.

Tasks

On a day to day basis, you will:

• Create high-poly and low-poly models for environmental objects — with a clear focus on architecture: modular building kits, structures, and props

• Overhaul and optimize our existing asset kits: consolidate materials, reduce poly counts, and bring everything to a consistent, performant standard

• Create assets for bespoke landmark locations — the kind of places players remember

• Design with modularity and reusability in mind, so our world artists can build more with less

• Rework existing vegetation and natural assets to a cleaner, more maintainable standard where needed

• Work from photo reference and concept art to hit a believable, grounded look

• Produce clean, efficient UVs and game-ready assets that respect the technical limitations of a large open world

• Work closely with World Art, Level Design, and Tech Art to ensure requirements are met

• Help troubleshoot and fix problems as they arise, from a visual, technical, and production perspective

Requirements

• Previous experience on professional game projects

• A portfolio with clear examples of your own asset production — not just set dressing or kit-bashed scenes. On team pieces, tell us exactly which parts you made yourself; we do check.

• Solid experience building modular asset kits, and a real understanding of how worlds are constructed from them

• Strong modeling skills and experience in a major 3D package (Blender, Maya, 3ds Max)

• Sculpting experience with software like ZBrush

• Good understanding of the PBR material pipeline

• Solid grasp of baking and texturing using the Substance Suite and Photoshop

• Basic knowledge of shader creation

• Ability to resolve issues from a visual, technical, and production perspective

• Strong communication skills — you can articulate ideas and questions across departments, and give and receive constructive feedback

• We’d appreciate a link to your Steam profile, so we can get a feel for where your interests lie and where they overlap with ours

• Fluent spoken and written English

Bonus Skills

• Proficiency with Unreal Engine 5

• Knowledge of foliage creation

• Experience with procedural workflows (e.g. Houdini)

• Experience working on open world games

• Experience working in an indie or small team environment

Working Model

• Fully remote

• Freelance, with a full time option for candidates based in Germany

• Flexible working hours with a strong focus on ownership and trust

• Direct collaboration within a small, focused team

Benefits

• Work on Ardem, a highly anticipated survival game — and help set a new benchmark for the genre you love

• Small team with high impact, results-driven mindset and fast decision-making

• High ownership and creative freedom — shape the world, don't just fill tickets

• Flexible working hours (results > green dots)

How We Hire

1. First interview — We talk about Techtive, Ardem, and the role, and get a high-level picture of your skills and how you work.

2. Art test — If the first conversation goes well, you'll receive a small art test: a basic brief with a few guidelines and some inspirational screenshots from Ardem. Everything you build should work as part of a larger environment — we're not looking for isolated beauty shots that would fall apart in an actual game world. There's no fixed deadline, but we'll ask you to track roughly where your time went.

3. Second interview — We go through your art test together: your decisions, your process, and where you spent your time.

4. Culture fit — The final conversation is less about craft and more about people: how you like to work, what you expect from a team, and whether we actually fit each other. We're a small, fully remote crew — who you are matters as much as what you build. The practical side (contract, conditions, start date) gets sorted here too.

We know an art test is a real time investment, and not everyone can afford that easily — we don't take it for granted. It's the fairest way we've found to judge actual craft over a polished portfolio, and it's the basis for a much better conversation in round two.