Haven Studios is a video game development studio based in Montréal. In May 2021, we embarked on the adventure of creating Haven with a small team and great ambitions. Our goal was to build a studio bringing together exceptional people to create, together, the games we have always dreamed of playing. At Haven, we believe that kindness, adaptability and boundless optimism foster creative excellence. We are a hybrid studio that values the flexibility, focus and collaboration of our teams.

In 2022, Haven joined the PlayStation Studios family as Sony's first game development team in Canada. Our first game is currently in development for PlayStation and PC. It is a competitive multiplayer action heist game, designed to entertain and engage players for many years.

We are looking for an experienced Principal Game Designer with a highly structured and analytical mindset to take charge of the progression systems, the player lifecycle and the economic health of our next live service game.

In this role, you will design the structures and systems that sustain player engagement over the long term, turning a high-level creative vision into progression loops and economic systems that are rigorous, structured and grounded in solid mathematical models.

You will work in a collaborative, multidisciplinary environment, ensuring that player investment, rewards and monetisation strategies form a coherent, fair and deeply engaging whole.

Reporting line

The Principal Game Designer will report directly to the Project Manager - Game Design.

• System architecture: Design, model and maintain complex player progression structures, monetisation loops and virtual economies that foster retention and long-term engagement in a live service environment.
• Structured system design: Transform abstract player experience goals into precise structural diagrams, detailed spreadsheets, data tables and algorithmic logic models.
• Balancing and tuning: Take ownership of the balancing, pacing and tuning of rewards, XP curves, drop rates, resource creation and consumption mechanics and the overall game economy, in order to avoid inflation and bottlenecks in progression.
• Live service integration: Coherently integrate progression, monetisation and social systems within a AAA multiplayer ecosystem, ensuring they are harmonised for both PvE and PvP experiences.
• Cross-functional collaboration: Act as the main point of contact for progression and economy systems, working closely with directors, production, analysts and data analysts, and engineering teams to ensure the technical feasibility of systems and their compatibility with telemetry data.
• Lifecycle optimisation: Adapt and optimise systems after launch based on player performance indicators, behaviours and evolving market trends, while maintaining structural balance when adding new content.

• AAA and live service experience: Extensive experience in system or progression design, with at least one launched AAA live service multiplayer title, in which you have led or made a significant contribution to the game economy or its progression loops.
• Structured mindset: A rigorous and highly methodical design approach. You rely on solid mathematical logic, complex spreadsheets and structured documentation rather than assumptions.
• Command of economic principles: In-depth understanding of macroeconomic and microeconomic principles as applied to modern video games, including monetisation strategies, virtual currencies, reward pacing and incentive loops.
• Engine proficiency: Excellent ability to work directly in the Unreal Engine editor to connect data structures, configure data tables and test changes to progression parameters locally.
• Data-driven approach: Strong ability to interpret real-time telemetry data, player cohorts, A/B test results and macroeconomic analyses in order to guide balancing adjustments and system optimisation.
• Clear documentation: Excellent ability to synthesise complex, multidimensional economic dependencies into clear system specifications that are easy to understand for both technical and non-technical stakeholders.

• System modelling tools: Experience with economic simulation software or advanced mathematical modelling and scripting tools (e.g. Python, Machinations or advanced spreadsheet models) to test systems before implementation.
• Multidisciplinary experience: Previous design experience in complementary fields such as level design, business intelligence, data analysis or UX design.