How to Apply to Cygames

9 min read Last updated April 20, 2026 2 open positions
Blake Crosley
Blake Crosley Researched using publicly available information, hiring data, and ATS analysis.

Key Takeaways

  • Cygames hires through a custom recruit portal, not a standard ATS — apply at recruit.cygames.co.jp/career for full-time, fresh.cygames.co.jp for new grads, and hrmos.co/pages/cygames for part-time/freelance.
  • Japanese language at JLPT N1 (preferred) or N2 (minimum) is effectively required for most HQ roles; submit Japanese 履歴書 and 職務経歴書 unless the JD explicitly invites English.
  • The '最高のコンテンツを作る' (make the best content) philosophy is the operating principle — quality bar is famously high and overtime culture, while improved post-2020 reforms, remains more intense than Western studios.
  • Granblue Fantasy: Relink (Feb 2024, PS5/PS4/PC) validated Cygames' console pivot; Project Awakening remains in development with no firm release window — a real signal of internal standards.
  • Pay sits at the top of the Japanese gaming average (Capcom/Square Enix tier) but below US AAA studios on absolute terms; benefits, equipment, and studio amenities are strong.
  • Regional studios (Osaka CY Tech, Saga, Sapporo, Fukuoka) offer real engineering and art career paths with somewhat better cost-of-living and, in some cases, slightly different production cultures than Tokyo HQ.
  • Interview process is 2-3 rounds, conducted in Japanese, formal but substantive — show specific knowledge of the IP, depth in your craft, and long-term commitment, not generic enthusiasm.

About Cygames

Cygames (株式会社Cygames) is a Tokyo-headquartered game developer founded in 2011 by Koichi Watanabe, headquartered in Shibuya and operating as a consolidated subsidiary of CyberAgent (~95% ownership) with Nintendo holding a roughly 5% strategic stake acquired in 2017. The company employs approximately 3,500 staff across its Tokyo HQ and regional studios in Osaka (CY Tech / CY OSK), Saga (Cygames Saga), Sapporo, and Fukuoka, plus an in-house anime production arm called CygamesPictures. Its corporate slogan, '最高のコンテンツを作る会社' ('the company that makes the best content'), is not marketing decoration — it is the operating principle that drives every staffing, scheduling, and approval decision inside the building, and it is the single most important thing a candidate needs to internalize before applying. The portfolio spans live-service mobile RPGs, console action titles, fighting games, card games, and anime. Granblue Fantasy (2014) remains the financial backbone — a browser/mobile gacha JRPG with a decade-long content cadence and an unusually loyal global fanbase. Princess Connect Re:Dive, Shadowverse, Shadowverse: Worlds Beyond, World Flipper, and Granblue Fantasy: Versus Rising fill out the live-service and competitive lineup. The 2024 release of Granblue Fantasy: Relink (PS5/PS4/PC) was a watershed: Cygames' first major self-developed console action RPG, it shipped to strong critical reception and over three million units sold, validating the studio's multi-year pivot toward AAA console development. Project Awakening, the dark-fantasy console action title first announced in 2018, remains in development with no firm release window as of early 2026 — a candid signal of just how high the internal quality bar sits. The Uma Musume Pretty Derby franchise became a JP cultural phenomenon between 2021 and 2024, generating peak revenues that, at points, made it among the highest-grossing mobile games globally and funding a substantial expansion of staff, studios, and infrastructure. The Uma Musume anime, Princess Connect anime, and several other CygamesPictures productions are tightly integrated with the games' release cadences, and the cross-discipline collaboration between game teams and the animation studio is a real competitive advantage that internal teams take pride in. For candidates, what this all means in practice: Cygames is a quality-obsessed, Japanese-primary, mid-to-senior-heavy studio with a famously demanding production culture, world-class IP, real engineering depth (CEDEC and GDC presentations are common), and a still-evolving relationship with overtime — historically intense, materially better since 2020 work-style reforms, but not Western-style 40-hour-week comfortable.

Application Process

  1. 1
    Decide your channel first: 新卒 (new graduate, fresh

    Decide your channel first: 新卒 (new graduate, fresh.cygames.co.jp) for current students graduating that academic year, 第二新卒 (second-new-grad, 0-3 years post-graduation), or 中途 (mid-career, recruit.cygames.co.jp/career) for experienced professionals. Part-time (アルバイト) and freelance roles route through HRMOS at hrmos.co/pages/cygames/jobs.

  2. 2
    Browse open roles at recruit

    Browse open roles at recruit.cygames.co.jp/career, filter by職種 (job category — Engineer / Designer / Planner / 2D・3D Artist / Sound / QA / Corporate) and勤務地 (work location — Tokyo, Osaka, Saga, Sapporo, Fukuoka). Read the 必須条件 (required) and 歓迎条件 (preferred) lists carefully; Japanese gaming JDs are specific.

  3. 3
    Prepare a Japanese 履歴書 (rirekisho

    Prepare a Japanese 履歴書 (rirekisho — standardized resume with photo) and 職務経歴書 (shokumu-keirekisho — detailed work history). Standard JIS templates are expected. For creative and technical roles, prepare a portfolio (PDF or web link) showing shipped titles, code samples, art reels, or game design documents — required for nearly all non-corporate roles.

  4. 4
    Submit through the role-specific application form on recruit

    Submit through the role-specific application form on recruit.cygames.co.jp (custom portal — no LinkedIn Easy Apply, no Workday, no Greenhouse). HRMOS handles part-time and freelance applications. Auto-acknowledgement arrives within 1-2 business days; substantive screening response typically takes 1-3 weeks.

  5. 5
    Document screening (書類選考) is the first real gate

    Document screening (書類選考) is the first real gate. The recruiting team plus a hiring manager from the relevant studio review your materials. Pass rate is genuinely competitive — Cygames receives high application volumes for popular IP roles and rejects most candidates before interviews.

  6. 6
    Interview rounds typically run 2-3 stages: a first interview with the hiring tea

    Interview rounds typically run 2-3 stages: a first interview with the hiring team (often technical/portfolio-focused), a second interview with senior leadership or cross-team stakeholders, and a final interview with an executive or studio head. Engineering candidates should expect a coding test or technical exercise — sometimes take-home, sometimes on-site.

  7. 7
    Offer (内定) arrives in writing after final interview, typically within 1-2 weeks

    Offer (内定) arrives in writing after final interview, typically within 1-2 weeks. Compensation is presented as annual salary (年収) with detailed breakdown of base, fixed allowances, and bonus structure. Negotiation is possible but more constrained than US norms — internal pay bands are taken seriously.

  8. 8
    Onboarding (入社) is generally aligned with the Japanese fiscal year (April 1 entr

    Onboarding (入社) is generally aligned with the Japanese fiscal year (April 1 entry for new grads) or the first of the month for mid-career hires. Expect a structured orientation, mandatory compliance training, and assignment to a specific game team or studio after initial onboarding.

Resume Tips for Cygames

recommended

Submit a Japanese-language 履歴書 and 職務経歴書 unless the role explicitly states Engli

Submit a Japanese-language 履歴書 and 職務経歴書 unless the role explicitly states English is acceptable. Even bilingual roles strongly prefer Japanese-primary materials — submitting English-only signals you have not done the homework.

recommended

List shipped titles by name, your specific role, team size, your individual cont

List shipped titles by name, your specific role, team size, your individual contributions, and the platform. 'Worked on Granblue Fantasy' is meaningless; 'Battle system programmer on Granblue Fantasy: Relink (PS5), implemented status-effect resolution pipeline in C++ across a team of 12' is what gets reviewed.

recommended

For engineers, name the engines, languages, and tools you have shipped with — Un

For engineers, name the engines, languages, and tools you have shipped with — Unreal Engine 4/5, Unity, proprietary engines, C++, C#, Go, Python, Perforce, Jenkins, AWS — and quantify scale (concurrent users, data volume, frame budget).

recommended

For artists and designers, link a portfolio that loads quickly, requires no logi

For artists and designers, link a portfolio that loads quickly, requires no login, and shows production-quality work in the style range Cygames actually ships (anime/JRPG aesthetic for most titles, more Western-fantasy for Project Awakening / Relink).

recommended

For planners (プランナー / game designers), include playable prototypes, design docum

For planners (プランナー / game designers), include playable prototypes, design documents, or shipped systems you owned. 'Idea person' framing reads poorly; spec-and-ship framing reads well.

recommended

Highlight any CEDEC, GDC, or technical conference talks, published research, or

Highlight any CEDEC, GDC, or technical conference talks, published research, or industry community contributions — Cygames places real cultural weight on engineering and craft visibility.

recommended

Be explicit about Japanese language ability using JLPT levels (N1 strongly prefe

Be explicit about Japanese language ability using JLPT levels (N1 strongly preferred for HQ roles, N2 minimum for most non-international engineering positions). If you do not have N1, do not exaggerate — it will be tested in interviews.

recommended

Address relocation realistically

Address relocation realistically. If applying from overseas, state visa status (or the need for sponsorship), willingness to relocate to Tokyo/Osaka/Saga, and any Japan work history. Cygames does sponsor visas for the right candidates but the process is faster when you have already cleared that question.

ATS System: Custom Cygames recruit portal + HRMOS (for part-time/freelance)

Cygames runs its own bespoke career portal at recruit.cygames.co.jp for full-time mid-career roles and fresh.cygames.co.jp for new graduates. There is no Workday, Greenhouse, Lever, or SuccessFactors instance. Applications are submitted through role-specific HTML forms on the custom portal. Part-time (アルバイト) and freelance (フリーランス) positions are managed through HRMOS — a Japanese ATS by BizReach — at hrmos.co/pages/cygames/jobs. The Saga studio maintains a separate recruit subsite at cygames-saga.jp/recruit/.

  • Identify the correct portal before you start: recruit.cygames.co.jp/career for full-time mid-career, fresh.cygames.co.jp for new grads, hrmos.co/pages/cygames for part-time and freelance, and cygames-saga.jp/recruit for the Saga studio.
  • The custom portal does not parse resumes algorithmically — humans read every application — so plain-text keyword stuffing has no effect, but accurate role titles, technologies, and shipped products absolutely do.
  • Most application forms accept PDF uploads for 履歴書 and 職務経歴書; expect strict file-size limits (often 5-10MB). For portfolios over the limit, use a clean external link (personal site, ArtStation, GitHub).
  • Save a copy of every form before submitting. Custom portals occasionally session-timeout, and there is no draft auto-save like Greenhouse provides.
  • On HRMOS (part-time/freelance), creating an account allows you to track application status; the custom portal sends status updates by email only — set up a filter so they do not land in spam.

Interview Culture

Cygames interviews are formal, calm, and substance-dense.

The dominant language is Japanese; assume every interview will be conducted in Japanese unless the role description explicitly states otherwise, and even bilingual interviews tend to default to Japanese for technical depth. Expect 2-3 rounds: a first round with the hiring team focused on your portfolio, shipped work, and technical depth; a second round with senior leadership exploring fit, judgment, and how you handle ambiguity; and a final round with an executive or studio head where the conversation is often about long-term motivation and alignment with the '最高のコンテンツを作る' philosophy. Engineering interviews include practical coding work — sometimes a take-home assignment, sometimes a live whiteboard or laptop exercise — that emphasizes correctness, readability, and reasoning over leetcode trickery. Designers and planners should expect to walk through specific prior projects in detail, defend design decisions, and discuss how they would approach a hypothetical Cygames-style live-service feature. Artists should be ready to talk about pipeline, tooling, and collaboration with engineering and direction, not just final renders. Tone-wise, expect classic Japanese corporate professionalism: punctual arrival, a brief self-introduction (自己紹介), neutral business attire, and measured answers. Strong opinions are welcome but theatrical confidence is not. Asking thoughtful questions about the team, the IP, or the production process is rewarded; asking about overtime or salary in the first round is read as a misread of the room. Final interviews often probe how seriously you take the quality bar — vague answers about 'wanting to make great games' land flat.

What Cygames Looks For

  • Genuine, specific enthusiasm for at least one Cygames title — not 'I love anime games' but 'I have played Granblue Fantasy for six years and Relink reshaped how I think about action RPG combat systems.'
  • Demonstrated quality obsession: shipped work where you can articulate what you cut, polished, or rebuilt to meet a higher bar, not just what you delivered on time.
  • For engineers: depth over breadth. Strong fundamentals in your declared specialty (graphics, gameplay, server, tools, ML) backed by shipped systems, with bonus weight for proprietary-engine experience or low-level optimization work.
  • Japanese language proficiency at JLPT N1 (strongly preferred) or N2 (minimum for most non-international roles); willingness to operate in a Japanese-default environment regardless of nationality.
  • Collaboration evidence — Cygames teams are large, cross-functional, and discipline-rich. Solo-hero framing reads poorly; 'I worked closely with the planning team to spec the system, then iterated with QA and sound' reads well.
  • Long-term commitment signals. Japanese hiring still rewards stability; a string of 12-month tenures will be questioned, and 'why Cygames specifically and why now' should have a clear answer.
  • Cultural alignment with the '最高のコンテンツ' philosophy: candidates who treat shipping as the floor and craft as the ceiling, not the other way around.
  • For console-track engineers and artists (Project Awakening, Relink): demonstrable AAA console experience or transferable skills (Unreal Engine, modern rendering, large-team pipelines, performance budgeting on PS5/Xbox Series hardware).

Frequently Asked Questions

What ATS does Cygames use?
Cygames uses a custom in-house recruitment portal at recruit.cygames.co.jp for full-time mid-career roles and fresh.cygames.co.jp for new graduates. Part-time (アルバイト) and freelance positions are managed through HRMOS by BizReach at hrmos.co/pages/cygames/jobs. The Saga regional studio runs a separate site at cygames-saga.jp/recruit. There is no Workday, Greenhouse, Lever, or SuccessFactors instance — applications go through bespoke HTML forms on each portal.
Do I need to speak Japanese to work at Cygames?
For most roles at Tokyo HQ and the Japanese regional studios, yes — JLPT N1 is strongly preferred and N2 is effectively the minimum for non-international positions. A small number of senior engineering roles, particularly in graphics R&D or international/global ops, may accept N3 or English-primary candidates with the expectation that you will reach N2 within a defined ramp period. Submit Japanese application materials unless the job description explicitly says otherwise.
Does Cygames sponsor work visas for foreign engineers?
Yes, for the right candidates. Cygames has sponsored Engineer/Specialist in Humanities/International Services visas and Highly Skilled Professional visas for engineers, designers, and artists with strong shipped portfolios. The process is materially faster and more predictable when you have prior Japan work history or have already passed JLPT N2/N1. State visa status and sponsorship needs explicitly in your application.
How long does the Cygames application process take?
Typical timeline is 4-8 weeks from application to offer. Document screening (書類選考) takes 1-3 weeks, the first interview is usually scheduled within 1-2 weeks of passing screening, second and final interviews follow at 1-2 week intervals, and offer letters arrive within 1-2 weeks of the final interview. New-graduate (新卒) recruitment runs on the standard Japanese academic timeline with offers typically extended in summer/autumn for the following April entry.
What is the work culture really like at Cygames? Is overtime as bad as people say?
Honestly: historically, Cygames had a reputation for intense overtime, particularly during major content updates or pre-launch crunch. Since 2020, work-style reform (働き方改革) has materially improved baseline conditions — defined max overtime hours, better tracking, more enforced rest. That said, Cygames is not a Western-style 40-hour-week studio. Expect 45-60 hour weeks during normal periods on live-service titles and meaningful crunch during major releases. The quality bar is real, and meeting it takes hours.
How much does Cygames pay?
Cygames sits at the top of the Japanese gaming compensation average — comparable to Capcom, Square Enix, and Bandai Namco — and notably above industry-wide medians. Mid-career engineers typically earn ¥6-12M annual base depending on specialty and seniority, with senior/principal-level engineers and leads on console projects (Relink, Project Awakening) reaching ¥12-18M+ inclusive of bonus. Compensation is materially below US AAA studios on absolute terms but Tokyo cost of living and benefits offset much of the gap.
What is it like to work at the regional studios (Saga, Osaka, Sapporo, Fukuoka)?
Regional studios offer real game-development career paths, generally lower cost of living, often slightly more relaxed pace than Tokyo HQ, and tight-knit team cultures. Osaka (CY Tech / CY OSK) houses significant engineering capacity. Saga (cygames-saga.jp) has its own recruitment site and is known for strong QA and operations work. Sapporo and Fukuoka have grown steadily. Cross-studio collaboration is real but most projects have a primary studio assignment.
What technologies and engines does Cygames use?
Cygames uses Unreal Engine (4 and 5) for major console titles like Granblue Fantasy: Relink and Project Awakening, Unity for many mobile titles, and proprietary engines for specific live-service products. Backend stacks span Go, Java, Ruby on Rails, AWS infrastructure, and large-scale data systems for live-service operations. Tooling work happens in Python, C#, and various in-house frameworks. The tech blog at tech.cygames.co.jp is the most reliable public source for current stack details by team.
Can I work remotely at Cygames?
Cygames is predominantly an on-site studio. Some hybrid arrangements exist for specific roles and tenured staff, but the default expectation for new hires — particularly creative, production, and most engineering roles — is on-site at your assigned studio (Tokyo, Osaka, Saga, Sapporo, or Fukuoka). Fully remote roles are rare and typically reserved for very senior or specialized positions. International remote hires are uncommon.
What does Cygames look for in a portfolio?
Shipped work, with your specific role and contributions clearly labeled. For artists: production-quality assets in the style range Cygames ships (anime/JRPG for most titles, Western-fantasy for Relink/Project Awakening), pipeline awareness, and collaboration evidence. For engineers: code samples, system designs, shipped features with measurable impact (frame budget, concurrent users, bug rate). For planners: playable prototypes, spec documents, shipped systems you owned end-to-end. Avoid showing student work alongside professional work without clear labeling — it dilutes the strong material.

Open Positions

Cygames currently has 2 open positions.

Check Your Resume Before Applying → View 2 open positions at Cygames

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Sources

  1. Cygames 採用情報 (official recruitment landing page) —
  2. Cygames キャリア採用 (mid-career recruitment portal) —
  3. Cygames 新卒採用 (new-graduate recruitment portal) —
  4. Cygames HRMOS jobs (part-time and freelance portal) —
  5. Cygames Saga 採用情報 (Saga studio recruitment) —
  6. Cygames Tech Blog (engineering culture and stack) —
  7. Cygames Magazine (staff voice and company culture) —
  8. Cygames Corporate Information —
  9. Cygames Recruitment FAQ —
  10. Cygames Benefits (福利厚生) —