UX in XDefiant

XDefiant is a free-to-play FPS made by Ubisoft. I joined in January 2022 as a UX Designer and worked on it until the release of its final season in December of 2024. Though the game had a short lifecycle, we attracted 11 million players when we first launched and had a dedicated fanbase that we closely collaborated with.

My contributions included designing key live-service features such as the character ability selection system, the store, game lobby, weapon skins, match results, daily login rewards, and the prestige system.

The work below is not only my own, but comprised of contributions from UI Tech Artists, Directors, Artists, copywriters, and our UI Art team lead.

Season 3 Front End Flow

The video below shows the user journey from the home screen to the game mode selection screen. We take time to explore the store and progression as well!

Character and Ability Selection

I worked on the redesign of the Ability selection tool, by making it more character oriented as leadership had suggested. I championed the team composition system, so that players could choose how to better optimize their mix of talents.

Since we had a lot of ideas for future factions to join the game, we wanted an easily scalable design that highlighted the game and IP that the faction had been derived from.

Prestige

This system wished to embody that the game isn’t over until you stop trying - it was a way for the player to begin progression again. Prestige was unlocked for the player after they had completed all challenges and unlocked weapons.

The video below shows the progression from Prestige Level 1 to Level 2.

Battle Pass

The XDefiant battle pass is a tiered progression system, where players earn rewards by playing and completing challenges. To fast forward through the track, you can purchase it to access the rewards immediately.

Accessibility

Colorblindness

This is an instance of mocking up chat windows so they suit different forms of vision capacity. It is meant to visualize how much different shades and tones can affect the end result.