Unreal 5 Physics Engineer - UFC-style fighting game

Location : Hybrid / Remote – Montreal QC Preferred

Employment Type: Full-Time
Reports To : CTO

Role Overview

We’re seeking a seasoned Physics Simulation Engineer to develop and optimize the physical foundation of a next-generation UFC-style fighting game built in Unreal Engine 5. 

You will own the design and implementation of real-time physics systems — from ragdolls and collisions to grappling, takedowns, and secondary motion — ensuring the action feels tactile, believable, and deeply responsive.

You’ll collaborate across gameplay, animation, and AI teams to bring visceral realism and cinematic weight to every hit, clinch, and ground transition.

Core Responsibilities

Physics & Simulation Development

• Design, implement, and tune character-centric physics systems (rigid-body, soft-body, cloth, and joint constraints).

• Extend Unreal’s Chaos Physics engine for advanced collision, friction, and joint behavior.

• Build hybrid systems combining physics simulation and animation control (active ragdolls, partial procedural blending).

• Implement accurate hit reaction, momentum transfer, and impact dampening models for punches, kicks, and grapples.

• Develop custom constraints and solvers for ground fighting, clinches, and submissions.

• Integrate with animation and AI layers to synchronize motion, physics, and input.

• Prototype physics-assisted motion systems (e.g., limb reaction forces, fatigue wobble, ground contact deformation).

Runtime Integration & Optimization

• Profile and optimize physics update loops for 60 FPS (console and PC).

• Maintain stability under varying frame rates and network conditions (deterministic rollback support).

• Design LOD-based physics simplifications for off-camera fighters and background actors.

• Integrate physics debug visualization and profiling tools for QA and design teams.

Cross-Discipline Collaboration

• Work with Animation Engineers on blending procedural motion with authored animations.

• Collaborate with Gameplay on combat timing, collision volumes, and balance.

• Coordinate with Design and Art to define physical material behaviors, surface responses, and destruction triggers.

• Partner with AI/ML teams to drive adaptive responses based on physical state.

Required Qualifications

• 5 + years professional experience in physics or gameplay engineering for real-time games.

• Deep expertise with Unreal Engine 4 / 5 and Chaos Physics (rigid-body, cloth, constraints, collision channels).

• Proficiency in C++ and performance-critical, multithreaded code.

• Strong foundation in classical mechanics, kinematics, and numerical simulation.

• Experience building or extending physics systems for character interactions (melee, ragdoll, vehicle, or sports gameplay).

• Skilled in profiling, debugging, and optimizing for console hardware.

• Experience maintaining stability and determinism in physics simulations for networked play.

Preferred / Bonus Skills

• Experience building a physics simulation from scratch.

• Knowledge of procedural animation and hybrid active ragdoll systems.

• Familiarity with AI-driven physics blending or reinforcement-learning control.

• Experience with soft-body dynamics, cloth, and muscle simulation.

• Prior work on fighting, sports, or action titles emphasizing tactile collision and combat realism.

• Understanding of motion-matching or animation-physics co-simulation pipelines.

• GPU or compute-based physics experience (NVIDIA Flex, PhysX, or custom solvers).

Success Indicators (First 6-12 Months)

• High-fidelity impact, takedown, and ragdoll responses tuned for gameplay realism.

• Stable, deterministic physics behavior across all platforms and network modes.

• Runtime cost within 1.5 ms/frame per character under heavy simulation load.

• Fully functional physics-animation blending system (active ragdoll / constraint solver / IK integration).

• Physics debug visualization and testbed maps adopted by design / QA teams.