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XDefiant

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.

ROLE
UI Tech Artist (Engine Implementation)
UX Design
Design System

DURATION
About 3 years
xd promotional key art

Selection Screens

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.

ability selection screen in preseason

Before

Selection was initially ability-focused, which emphasized gameplay over factions or cosmetics.

character selection screen in season 1

After

Selection became character-focused, to highlight the factions and encourage players to obtain them.


Different States & Localization

In Ranked, balancing your parties was essential, so checks and a party bar were added to quickly show who your teammates selected before starting a match.
We also adapted this screen and others to work in 16 different languages such as Arabic, which you can see below and learn more about in an Ubisoft inteview I did ↗.
character selection screen in Arabic

Loadouts & Player-Lineup

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.

loadout selection screen

player lineup screen prematch

HUD

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:

  • Hit Marker
  • Zone Control Animation
  • Killfeed
  • Health
  • Bomb Effect
  • Shield Durability
  • Slide Icon
  • Color Design System
  • Emojis
  • ...and more!

Scoreboard

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.

player of the game with owl

Cosmetics

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.

player of the game with owl

player of game with glowing blue fire

Prestige

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.

Settings

From subtitles to color blind modes, I modified Settings to make the game more accessible and customizable to a wide range of players.