3D Animator job overview : Welcome to Bethesda Game Studios, the award-winning development team behind some of the most iconic, critically acclaimed, and genre-defining franchises in interactive entertainment history, including Starfield, The Elder Scrolls, and Fallout. At Bethesda, we don’t just build games; we create massive, living worlds that players inhabit for thousands of hours.

Our studio culture is built on the belief that groundbreaking creativity flourishes when our people are supported, valued, and inspired. We are committed to offering our employees a thoroughly well-balanced home and work life. We achieve this by providing highly competitive salaries, a generous and comprehensive benefits program, and creative studio environments located in some of North America’s most vibrant and culturally rich cities.

With a definitive goal of cultivating a workforce and studio culture as fun, diverse, and inclusive as our global player base, we proudly welcome applicants with unique skillsets, varied experience levels, and diverse backgrounds. If you are deeply passionate about making a meaningful, lasting contribution to some of the most significant, widely anticipated games in the industry, we want to hear from you

Job Overview : 3D Animator

Job Attribute Details

Position Animator (First-Person Focus) / Animateur(trice)

Studio Bethesda Game Studios (Developer of Starfield, Fallout, The Elder Scrolls)

Location Options Rockville, MD | Austin, TX | Dallas, TX | Montreal, QC

Department Art (Animation)

Base Salary Range $70,000 – $155,000 / year (Dependent on primary work location)

Core Software Maya, 3ds Max,



or Blender (Required); MotionBuilder (Asset)

Key Qualifications 3D Animation training, strong hand-keyed principles, attention to detail

Bonus Skills First-person animation, motion capture, creature animation, animation graphs

Union Representation Yes (Represented by the Communication Workers of America – CWA)

The Role: Animator (First-Person Focus)

Bethesda Game Studios is seeking a talented, expressive, and technically proficient First-Person Animator to join our elite core Art Department. In this role, your craft will directly dictate the physical feel, immersion, and tactile feedback of our game worlds. You will focus heavily on the mechanics, weight, and subtle nuances of first-person gameplay perspective—ensuring that every weapon draw, spell cast, object interaction, and traversal mechanic feels incredibly responsive, punchy, and visually flawless.

We will consider exceptional candidates for placement across any of our four primary Bethesda Game Studios physical office locations:

This position is a prominent part of a collective bargaining unit and is proudly represented by the Communication Workers of America (CWA), ensuring a structured, fair, and advocate-supported workspace.





Core Responsibilities

1. High-Fidelity Asset Creation & Artistic Execution

- Hand-Keyed Animation: Masterfully apply core animation principles (timing, weight, secondary motion, squash and stretch, anticipation) to author premium, high-quality, hand-keyed animations that define the player’s primary perspective.
- Artistic Iteration: Seamlessly adapt and refine animations based on constructive feedback and the overarching artistic direction provided by Lead Animators and Directors.
- Mechanical Integration: Implement and rigorously maintain your animations directly within our proprietary engine architecture, troubleshooting runtime hitches to guarantee visual consistency.

2. Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration & Communication

- Gameplay & Cinematic Synergy: Collaborate dynamically with gameplay designers, programmers, sound designers, and technical artists to map out animation requirements that elevate both active gameplay feel and scripted cinematic moments.
- Positive Developer Relations: Actively and positively engage with developers outside of your immediate art discipline, cultivating a highly productive, respectful, and innovative environment across departments.
- External Coordination: Clearly articulate, document, and communicate specific asset dependencies, technical needs, or quality standards to out-of-team dependencies or external partners.
- Peer Reviews: Cultivate a studio-wide mindset of growth by providing insightful, highly constructive, and transparent peer-to-peer feedback to fellow animators

📌 3D Animator, Bethesda Game Studios, Canada (Montreal)
🏢 Festybay
📍 Montreal