XDefiant is a cross-platform, multiplayer FPS video game developed by Ubisoft. It was a live-service game that included features such as matchmaking, a battlepass, store, progression, and game modes. Available on PC, Playstation, and XBOX, XDefiant obtained 11 million players shortly after launch ↗.
I worked on every screen in this game at one point. You can find a few highlights below.
The selection screens were essential so players could quickly start their match on a mouse, keyboard, or controller. To achieve this, I did a competitor analysis and user testing with QA after integration. A sheen shader I made was later added to highlight ability selection.
Selection was initially ability-focused, which emphasized gameplay over factions or cosmetics.
Selection became character-focused, to highlight the factions and encourage players to obtain them.
Once the player had selected a character, they then had to select their loadout and prepare to start the match. During this time, they could customize their loadouts or chat with teammates, which were features I helped implement, made more accessible and improved performance for.
Once the player started the match, there were many UI elements that could spawn. A few that I worked on within Snowdrop can be seen below and to the video on the right:
Making the scoreboard scalable to the screen size and language you played in was a tricky task. Fonts, icon sizes, and flex-grid layouts were imperative to make sure it appeared properly in-game and in the menu.
XDefiant had a wardrobe of cosmetics including emojis, skins, and playercards. I managed the pipeline of integrating the UI assets into the Snowdrop game engine, designed a Bulk Edit data tool to expedite this process, and helped with cosmetic creation like the animation below.
I built the core logic for Prestige which included navigation between screens, animations, the slider, icon integration, data management, and more! I also led our first internal Figma prototype user testing with Prestige, which became a framework for future research.
From subtitles to color blind modes, I modified Settings to make the game more accessible and customizable to a wide range of players.