Project Excalibur
Evolving a Monolith
| ROLE | Senior UI Artist (Visual Designer) & Lead UI Artist (Visual Designer), UX Design (unofficially) |
| TEAM | 3 Technical UX Designers, 1 UX Designer, 2 UI Engineers, 2 Visual Designers |
| TIMEFRAME | Q3 2015 -Q3 2018 |
| PLATFORM | PC, PlayStation, Xbox |
| CONSTRAINTS | An evolution of World of Tanks for a western audience |
| SCOPE | Planned 5 Year Development Cycle, Cancelled at 3 |
| OUTCOME | Project Cancelled |
Context
In the spring of 2015, Wargaming Seattle (formerly Chris Taylor’s Gas Powered Games) was hard at work on a successor to World of Tanks (WoT). WoT enjoyed explosive popularity in the Cyrillic speaking region due to it’s enticing price tag, well optimized performance, and absolute bullseye-of-a-fantasy for that region.
As a successor, “Project Excalibur” as it was code-named, was meant to do for the franchise in The West what WoT had done in Eastern Europe. To achieve this, it hoped to leverage:
- Modern weaponry including a new class to hate (helicopters)
- Faster paced combat
- Westernized progression systems
The goal was to turn American kids into ะขะฐะฝะบะธััs (or “tankers”) as WoT had Russian Kids. Never mind the fact that WoT’s immense success in Russia (and comparative obscurity in The West) was the result of a deep cultural and historical features reaching back to WWII. The front line was in their homes and the role of Russian tanks in defending the territory was seminal. As American kids play solider, Russian kids play tanker.
Role
My work on Excalibur focused on a few areas:
- Establishing a visual style for 2D elements in game
- Wireframing and establishing interaction pattern & functionality across the UI
- Leading the execution of the in game UI implementation
- Providing Direction and Feedback for in-world UI
- Liaising with art contractors and external vendors
- Interaction design, asset authoring, teamwide presentations, and more.
Features
The Vehicle Tree
The Stamp Collection
Vehicle Inspection
Closing the deal
Cosmetic Customization
Vehicles as Characters
Loadout
Delightful Depth
End of Match
Celebrating All Outcomes
The HUD
Telling the story of Battle
Look Iteration
The Fantasy of Armor
Map
Abstracting Location
Font Exploration
Cross Cultural Read
