Manchester, England, United Kingdom
Hello! I'm Mattia, and I'm a Senior Game Designer based in Manchester specialising in design and balancing of complex gameplay systems, and live-service. I have 4+ years of experience across AA and AAA productions, from shipping multi-platform titles through traditional pipelines to owning live systems for a game with 100k–200k monthly active players. My core skill is designing systems with many moving parts and tuning them until they feel perfect, whether that's designing a new gameplay system from scratch, leading a full conversion under deadlines, or balancing progression for a premium release. I've worked across proprietary engines, Unreal Engine 5, and live-service environments. I'm comfortable at every stage of the design cycle: from initial concept and implementation through to iterative tuning and post-launch support, covering a big set of entities and parameters for large-scale game systems.
Working on Vehicle Gameplay Design Systems, Tuning, Flight and Combat Balancing for Star Citizen and Squadron 42.
Working on Vehicle Gameplay Design Systems, Tuning and Balancing for Star Citizen and Squadron 42. - Owner of vehicle balance and tuning across the entire STAR CITIZEN fleet with 150+ ships and ground vehicles, serving a live alpha with 100k–200k monthly active players - Responsible for defining performance profiles for every new vehicle release, translating technical parameters into cohesive feel, identity, and game-fit across flight, ground, and capital-scale vehicles - Redesigned missile and torpedo targeting gameplay design and parameter tuning within existing tech, shipped across a multi-patch rollout - Authored and iterated on flight turbulence as a new gameplay feature, owning the design definition and tuning pass through to release - Delivered a large-scale systemic balance pass introducing physical mass per thruster component across 150+ ships, a regression-sensitive work executed without breaking existing fleet balance - Maintained consistent output across monthly live patch cycles, owning vehicle release QA support, data population, and sign-off - Worked cross-discipline with engineering, art, content design and directors and data/game-experience teams using StarEngine internal tooling, XML data editing, and Excel-based balancing workflows
Working on Vehicle Gameplay Design Systems, Tuning and Balancing for Star Citizen and Squadron 42. - Full fleet conversion for Master Modes, a fundamental redesign of Star Citizen's flight model, requiring retuning 130+ ships to fit a new gameplay system within a single patch cycle under deadline pressure - Defined the handling and performance profile for the Hoverbike vehicle class, establishing the design baseline for an entire vehicle category, covering physics feel, balance, and release across multiple variants - Delivered iterative spaceship and weapons balance passes across multiple patches, maintaining consistency and combat feel across a diverse fleet - Maintained release cadence across new vehicles and variants, owning tuning, data population, and release support through internal tooling and XML pipelines
During my time in the company I've worked as a Vehicle & Physics Designer for TT Isle of Man - Ride on the Edge 3, creating immersive an motorbike physics simulation. My main contribution to the project consisted in: - Shaping and fine-tuning the intricate Vehicle Handling simulation experience on our proprietary game engine. - Contributing to the implementation and tuning of AI opponents. - Crafting and balancing the economy progression of vehicle upgrades for each motorbike in the game.
During my time at Nacon Studio Milan, I worked as a Vehicle & Weapon Designer for Terminator: Survivors My main contribution to the project consisted in: - Designing the entire Vehicle experience and gameplay from scratch. - Developing the Vehicle physics behaviors and handling functionality using the Unreal Engine 5 - Chaos physics system. - Implementing and fine-tuning various FPS combat-related systems for in-game weapons.