Call of Duty players have been buzzing with frustration over the new menu system in Modern Warfare 2, created by Infinity Ward. Many fans feel that navigating the game’s user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) is a confusing ordeal, prompting the question: what is Infinity Ward doing to fix this?
Over the past three years, Infinity Ward has brought in senior and high-level talent from the TV industry to enhance their UI/UX department. However, despite this expansion, players find Modern Warfare 2’s UI and UX overly complex compared to earlier titles in the series. Instead of being intuitive, the new system has left many frustrated.
UI and UX are crucial for any game as they significantly impact the player’s experience. Unfortunately, internal mismatches between departments and complicated workflows have led to the current situation. Even before the game’s release, some internal discussions highlighted that the UI was “difficult and invasive to design goals,” which directly affects gameplay.
Responding to these issues, Infinity Ward aims to revamp Call of Duty’s interface. With the introduction of Warzone and Call of Duty: Mobile, Activision showed a shift towards a sleeker, more modern interface for content discovery and the in-game store.
Infinity Ward plans a major redesign and rebranding of the UI/UX system, including:
– Launching Call of Duty’s first subscription service
– Conceptualizing a mobile application
– Reorganizing the content discovery and library/store architecture
To achieve this, they have been hiring hundreds of UI/UX engineers, including experts from Hulu and Microsoft. Design overhauls are inherently complex and involve extensive collaboration with departments such as Art, Design, QA, and Marketing.
The overhaul’s delay boiled down to time constraints, coordination challenges, and the necessity of remote work. An associate mentioned that updates are on the way, with work already in progress to refine the UI/UX for Modern Warfare 2 and Warzone 2.0. This will be done in stages rather than all at once, with iterative updates planned for Season 1 and beyond. Departments continue to work together to improve the game’s interface, aiming to enhance the player experience in future releases.