Mike Ellis
Mike Ellis
Game Designer / Design Manager
Cathedral 1.png
Cathedral 4.png
Mall Entrance.jpg
Mall Top Floor.jpg
3 Objective City - Cosmos Hotel 2.jpg
3 Objective City - Cosmos Hotel 3.jpg
Castle Map.JPG
Titan-Level-4-Updated-No-Grid.jpg
X-Fire-Map-Upper-Level-for-Gallery.jpg
Dread-Spawn-for-Gallery-Banner.jpg
Dread-Spawn-Variants-for-Gallery-Banner.jpg
 

Welcome!

My name is Mike Ellis and this is my personal website, which has information about my career. I am a game designer, creative leader, and design manager, with over 25 years of industry experience. I have a track record of providing clear creative direction and drive while empowering others to do what they do best. Skilled at creating interactions, features, systems, and content. During my career I’ve worked at game developers, platform holders, and publishers. Able to respectfully integrate into on-site and remote teams, providing added value, and assist in helping to achieve quality and time oriented goals. 


Games aren't just an interest or career
they're my life's work.

 

Areas of Expertise

Game-Design-Maze-Square.jpg

Design &
Planning

Everything from designing entire projects to individual components such as controls, weapons, enemies, levels/worlds, and game systems.

Creative-Leadership-Compass-Square.jpg

Creative
Leadership

Creatively leading teams toward clearly communicated, well-defined goals. Achieving quality results, within budgets and deadlines.

Dept-Management-Stopwatch-Square.jpg

Dept/Team
Management

Experienced in managing teams and departments of creative people. Ranging from just a couple of people to multiple design teams.

Production-Support-Square.jpg

Production
Support

Helping teams to define projects so that they can be quantified, scheduled, and tracked. Regularly auditing progress against dev time.

Testimonials

 
Testimonials

"Mike combines a wealth of real-world development experience with true game design ability. He integrated brilliantly when working in our dev team, with a talent for efficiently and effectively highlighting, then tackling, design challenges - at a high or low level. Providing ego-less insight and solutions, whether communicating an executive or designer level. If you're working on a video game project Mike Ellis can and will improve it, he’s also a pleasure to work with."

ALISTAIR HOPE
CREATIVE DIRECTOR, CREATIVE ASSEMBLY

"I worked with Mike over a period of 5 years at 343 on Halo at 343 Industries. In Mike's role as Design Director in the publishing team, he drove the quality for multiple Halo products such as "Spartan Assault" and "Halo Wars 2". His drive, high level of knowledge and overall relationship management are second to none in this industry and Mike is an absolute pleasure to work with. I can't recommend Mike enough for anything design related from initial vision to final mechanics tuning. I would love the chance to work with Mike again in the future" 

GRAEME JENNINGS
SENIOR PRODUCER, ELECTRONIC ARTS 

"Mike is an excellent and highly talented designer, whilst also being one of the best communicators I have worked with in the industry. His ability to create, deconstruct and also review designs is exemplary, both on paper and in build. Combine that with his clear empathy and, in my experience, his consistently delivered ideas, suggestions and solutions that were well received by the team and invariably improved the quality of the game."

David Nicholson
Executive Producer, Creative Assembly

"I've had the extreme pleasure of working alongside Mike for the last 4+ years now, and can honestly say he is one of the Best Design Directors I have ever worked with. Mike is a true Creative design thinker, and really grasps what it takes to make games great. He constantly has his pulse on the industry, has great ideas and thoughts around game design and gameplay, and has an appreciation for how Art and Design need to work together. Not only does he have a tremendous design mind, he has a passion and desire to make everything 100%. Any Art Director/Team that has the chance to work alongside him.....is lucky!" 

JAY PROCHASKA
ART DIRECTOR, MICROSOFT

"Mike possesses a rare combination of professionalism, innate design sense and extensive experience which naturally raises the quality level of every project he's associated with, making him an invaluable asset to any development team. He's inspirational as both a manager to work for and a designer to work alongside, and I'd happily jump at the opportunity to team up with him again."

Sam Villanueva
Senior Designer, Seismic Games