About

Jordan Groves has always liked stories. There is a certain magic to listening to a good one--no matter how tall the tale. While books, film, and theatre are a great inspiration to him in this regard, something just clicked when it came to games. Here were stories that you didn't just listen to or watch; you interacted with them. The core of the story is often the same, but your version of the story was always different from your friends. These are the stories that he wants to create.

When he finished high school, Jordan headed to Carnegie Mellon's School of Drama to study lighting design for the stage. After so many years focusing on mostly technical pursuits, it proved valuable to explore the more artistic avenues available through theatre. Learning to work with different personalities and skill sets, while quickly resolving design issues in time for the first show has also proved to be a valuable skill.

After receiving his Bachelor's of Fine Arts, Jordan decided to once again pursue a career in video games, having gotten the chance to briefly work for Midway Austin as an intern. So, he applied to the Master's of Digital Media program in Vancouver, British Columbia and soon moved to Canada. While there, he worked on several projects, including a prototype game for Skybox Labs and a final thesis

exploring methods of delivering narrative in games through gameplay, done in conjunction with Microsoft Game Studios Vancouver.

Upon finishing his Master’s, Jordan was hired full-time by the studio, now known as The Coalition. He worked as a level designer, helping the studio ship Gears of War 4, Gears 5, the Hivebusters DLC, and several demos for press events and trade shows. Towards the end of his tenure, he was involved in early prototyping and development for the project announced as Gears of War: E-Day, seeking to blend character and story better into the gameplay as a narrative gameplay designer.

The opportunity arose to join Humanoid Origin in early 2022, and with it, the chance to help build both a new, ambitious IP and the studio making it. The first level designer to join the team, Jordan prototyped and built core gameplay, mission beats, encounter scenarios and systems, and workflow tools for the level design team. As development progressed and the level design team grew, he helped establish mission and level development pipelines with key stakeholders in Art, Narrative, and the Directors group, while also designing missions, building their layouts, and scripting their encounters and events. Unfortunately, Humanoid Origin shuttered in December of 2024 before the project could be released.