Games Design and Art

Explore our specialist arts campus:

One of only a few specialist art schools in the Russell Group, you’ll be inspired to create in our purpose built studios and workshops and learn with expert creative practitioners at Winchester School of Art (WSA), part our University of Southampton community and just one hour from London. You’ll have industry exposure through guest lectures, work on live briefs with companies, explore work placements and internships where graduates have gone on to set up their own design labels or work at prestigious brands across the globe including Selfridges, Saatchi & Saatchi, Alexander McQueen, Burberry, ASOS, Nike and Apple. You’ll be prepared for a wide range of creative careers where 93% of Arts graduates were in employment or further study 15 months after graduation (Graduate Outcomes 2020/2021, published in 2023).

Study BA Games Design and Art:

If you want to make unique new games and take your ambitious ideas into emerging games markets, platforms and spaces, this is the programme for you. You’ll cover design, illustration, character creation, animation and storytelling, as well as coding and digital production. Unlike many games design courses, BA Games Design and Art is based in an art school rather than a computer science department, allowing you to work creatively while gaining essential technical skills.

You’ll learn to apply design-thinking to the creation of brand new games and refine them through research-led creative investigation, making, prototyping and user testing.

You’ll explore the full spectrum of gaming, including screen-based (video) games, augmented and virtual reality game-making, alongside the physical production of products such as location-based games, board games, card games and escape rooms. You’ll also cover the emerging fields of purposeful games and serious games, and explore how games can be designed to have social impact and cultural significance.

You’ll work in your own studios on campus as part of a vibrant, creative environment designed to mirror the collaborative practices of games companies and the creative industries. Working closely with your peers in a close-knit class, you’ll collaborate, inspire one another and explore concepts you are passionate about.

As part of your degree you’ll be able to visit innovative games studios and conferences, and pitch your ideas and prototypes to industry. You can also choose to spend a year in employment or study abroad for a year.

*Course subject to programme review