UI has become a hotbed of frustration and discussion amongst Call of Duty players. Fans of the franchise are left tangled in the web of Infinity Ward’s new menu system for their flagship title, Modern Warfare 2. It begs the question, what strides are Infinity Ward taking to improve these features? Here’s the scoop.
Over the last 3 years, seniors, directors, and experienced formers in TV were hired into Infinity Ward’s UI/UX department, despite the expansion of the team and its talents throughout development, it left Call of Duty players lost navigating Modern Warfare 2’s obscure UI and UX systems; a muddled mess that goes against the intuitive menu designs established by past Call of Duty titles.
User Interface (UI) and User Experience (UX) play an importance in the overall game and execution, as it serves as a great tool for vetting the quality of a product. However, due to some internal disparity between departments, complicating instructions and workflows, it has produced the results many players see now. The issue was pressed internally for discussion, and a few flags were raised prior to the release describing the UI as ‘difficult, and invasive to design goals’ – UI tends to directly impact gameplay, and without emphasis on particular features, it can make or break the experience of the player.
Renovating Call of Duty’s interface
With the introduction of Warzone and Call of Duty: Mobile, it indicated a slight shift towards Activision’s desire to renovate Call of Duty’s interfaces to a more modern, stream-lined display for content discovery and store.
They sought after that talent and opened up hundreds of UI/UX/Engineering positions for hire, bringing on mavens from Hulu and Microsoft.
Design overhauls are always polarising and complicated, as generally, the UI/UX team are a forum for several other major departments that include Art, Design, QA, Marketing and more.
The results primarily boiled down to time, coordination, and working from home. In conversation with an associate, it was mentioned that some revision is coming to the UI/UX for the future of Modern Warfare 2 and Warzone 2.0,
“it’s a work in progress, there’s a lot of moving pieces […] updates have been well underway”.
Seemingly, a more piecemeal approach to refining the UI/UX in stages, rather than on launch. Several departments continue to work in collaboration to sharpen the UI and other additional interfaces for Season 1 and beyond.
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