3D Character Animator — Orlando, FL

The Last Sage is an original VR-first dark fantasy RPG that combines party-based tactical combat, environmental storytelling, and psychological themes into a deeply immersive experience.

We're looking for an Animator who wants to help bring this cast to life. A world shaped by history, sacrifice, and forgotten truths, played out through people the player stands next to. Combat has no conventional HUD, so how a character stands and moves tells the player how that fight is going for them.

About the Project

• Title: The Last Sage

• Genre: VR-first Dark Fantasy JRPG

• Engine: Unreal Engine 5.7

• Platforms: Steam PCVR and Flatscreen

• Current Stage: Showcase demo in active development

Core gameplay systems are already functional, including combat, party systems, stress mechanics, AI foundations, and exploration. The project's next milestone is a playable showcase demo that supports future funding efforts.

Why This Role Matters

The player in The Last Sage stands on the battlefield and commands a party of three.

What we need now is someone who can make each of those three read as a specific person, from any angle, in the middle of a fight.

The party runs on stock animation packs today, and some actions share clips or have nothing playing at all. A strained casting hand or a dropped guard does the job a status bar does in another game. Your work replaces the stock clips with performances that belong to these characters, and it's a large part of how the player understands combat.

The Opportunity

This is an opportunity to create the first performances of a new cast in an original universe.

Retargeting, montage setup, and notify timing already work in the engine, and the party's overworld movement is covered, so your time goes to the battle performances.

As Animator, you'll work directly with the project's founder and Art Director to give each hero a way of moving that is theirs alone.

What You'll Own

You'll own how the party performs in battle, including:

• Battle stances and idles for each hero

• Basic attacks and signature skills

• Hit reactions, stuns, and item use

• Downed, revive, and death

• Stress and Overload body language

• Battle intros and victory moments

• Clear differences between the heroes at combat distance

• You'll also influence combat readability, character performance, and how animation pairs with effects and sound.

What Success Looks Like

By the conclusion of this engagement, every battle action a player can trigger with the three demo heroes will play an animation that reads as that hero. Success is measured by how clearly a player can read each character in a headset at combat distance.

Expected deliverables include:

• A full battle set for three heroes, around 50 actions in total

• A distinct animation for each demo skill

• Stress variants that show a character starting to fray

• Downed and revive sets for each hero

• Hit frames and notify timing for every action that deals damage

• Editable source files with every delivery

Production Context

This engagement focuses on keyframe animation for a character-driven combat game. Engineering and in-engine integration are handled by the founder.

You'll initially collaborate with:

• Founder / Creative Director / Principal Developer

• Art Director

• VFX Artist (being hired now)

• Sound Designer (being hired now)

Project status

• Core gameplay systems are functional.

• The demo level is built and has had its look pass.

• The three heroes are MetaHuman-based, and their final meshes are in progress.

• Every hero battle action is listed, with a written brief for what it must show the player.

Designing for VR

This project is built for VR first. This changes how animation is experienced.

Players stand on the battlefield beside the party and can look anywhere, so no camera frames your work and no front view is guaranteed. Motion has to read in stereo and in the round. Emotion comes through posture and silhouette instead of facial close-ups, with grounded weight and no exaggeration.

Experience with VR development is valuable, though candidates with transferable experience animating combat or character performance for third-person games are also encouraged to apply.

Who You Are

We're less interested in job titles than in experience solving the kinds of creative problems this project presents.

Ideal candidates may include:

• Senior Animators

• Gameplay Animators

• Combat Animators

• Character Animators

• Experienced Indie Animators

We're especially interested in people who have worked on:

• Melee, ranged, and spellcasting combat

• RPGs with party-based combat

• Character performance through body language

• Motion capture cleanup

• Creature animation

• Dark fantasy

• VR projects

• Unreal Engine productions

The Ideal Animator for The Last Sage

You enjoy:

• Showing who a character is through how they stand

• Animating grounded movement with real weight

• Making two similar actions impossible to confuse

• Working from a written brief and bringing your own ideas to it

• Collaborating closely with designers, VFX artists, and sound designers

• Balancing artistic ambition with production realities

Engagement

This is a fractional, milestone-based contract engagement focused on the project's showcase demo. Demo content locks on February 1, 2027, so we're looking to get started as soon as possible.

Compensation combines paid milestone work with the opportunity to participate in the project's longer-term success through revenue sharing on accepted demo work, consistent with the project's collaboration model.

Learn More

If this opportunity resonates with you, we'd love to start a conversation. We'll share additional material with interested candidates, including a worldbuilding overview, the deliverables for this role, and the demo roadmap.

Apply through our application form here: ••••••••