Call of Duty Warzone: User Experience
| Analysis of two brothers gamers, during the pandemic.
Analysed by: Daniel Hernández and Andrés Hernández.
| Analysis of two brothers gamers, during the pandemic.
Analysed by: Daniel Hernández and Andrés Hernández.
After the successful reboot of the series, Call of Duty Modern Warfare gets back into the hearts of its players, and Activision not content with the task well done with its franchise launches Warzone in times of pandemic. A free game that has captivated more than 50 million players around the world and above all, it has been a great relief for the days of lockdown, because playing it time goes faster.
Call Of Duty Warzone has delighted players with several of its sections that are a fundamental part of a video game, especially in terms of graphics and gameplay. Although the gaming experience is sometimes overshadowed by glitches, bugs, constant lag and hackers in each game session, we want to talk about something that you may overlook: The user experience. When you notice it, you are immersed in a world of micro experiences that could improve a lot, and that could make playing for hours much better.
| User experience starts from the menu.
Just as when you go to a restaurant, from the menu, you realise the type of experience that the establishment brings you. The same thing happens with a game. In this case, we will see how the menus and submenus of Warzone generate us some confusion.
| OPERATORS — Where is mine?
If you are a player, you know that you can choose an operator between two groups, those of Coalition or those of Allegiance, and this is where one of the first uncomfortable micro-experiences begins. You can select one of the operators you want to play with; the problem is that if you choose it, it does not mean that this is going to be the operator you are going to play with unless you establish that faction as your favourite. For expert players, it is something learned. Still, if you are new to the game, it will take several sessions to understand why you are not playing with the operator you selected until finally, you see that small message on the menu that says: “Set as a favourite faction”. Choosing an operator should be as simple as seeing a list of characters and selecting the one you like the most.
Continuing with the theme of the Operators, many of them have a variety of skins that you can access by buying them or completing some objectives of the game, and it is here where you face another fatal micro-experience:
If you are on the “Customize Operator” screen and want a skin of an operator that you like, the menu will tell you: “you must complete objectives to have it”, but which ones? On that screen they do not show you the objectives, you have to go to an ultra-saturated submenu of information, (the menu of “Operator Missions”) where you see the objectives of many of them but not the operator you want. Why, if you only needed to know one?
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| WEAPONS & ARMORY — Go around and around for one action
The armory at a glance looks like a shelf where you can choose your weapons, but this only serves as a showcase and to take you to micro-transactions. First, it is not clear what weapons you have available to select as part of your collection, many of those you think you have them, but no, you have to buy them with real money (COD Points).
When you finally find one that is part of your collection, you cannot put it directly from that menu to your loadouts. You must get out of there, go to the loadout and look for it again among the many options of weapons. It doesn’t make much sense when a click directly from the armory can solve it.
Also, a solution from our point of view that would work to understand what is part of your collection, is that armory should highlight your weapons and those that you do not own, show them opaque.
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| BUNDLES & STORE — Micro-transactions & Micro-stress
In the Store there are many options of bundles, skins, operators, blueprints and highlights that are incredible. But this section is like when you go to a physical store, you see something that you like and you don’t buy it at the moment, you come back the next day and it’s gone.
Why apply this in the Warzone Store? This way to display it is one of the things that generate more micro-stress, just why don’t they show the complete Store catalogue? Well, there is a way to get to it to see all the bundles, and that is through the supersaturated armory. The logical thing would be for the Store to show you all the content that exists for the different items and once purchased, it appears in the weapons and operators menus. Simple.
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| UX IN GAMEPLAY
After navigating the non-friendly menu, let’s go to the game. We will not go into details of game experience, but of in-game user experience with the interface elements.
After navigating the non-friendly menu, let’s go to the game. We will not go into details of game experience, but of in-game user experience with the interface elements.
| Squad Colours
The best thing about FPS games is that you can play with friends, and the most common thing is that everyone is connected using audio. When you already know who is part of your squad and the colour assigned to it, it is too useful to receive and give orders or to point targets. But when in each game the colour of the squad member changes, it makes it confusing, especially at peak times during fighting.
In one game one of your squad friends is green, and in the other one, it is blue and then yellow. The colours assigned should be those that remain throughout the game session always for all squad members.
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| Invasive notifications
The interface already has enough information, but to this are added very invasive notifications that interfere the gaming experience, especially in moments of tension where in the middle of a fight this information appears, hiding behind an enemy or a target.
On the other hand, the sound design of the game is already too perfect, it is useful, and it immerses you on the map, but these signs pop up too loud and merge with the natural sounds of the experience in the war zone, which is annoying.
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If you are a fan of the saga and you like FPS’s, surely you have enjoyed this game. We have spent a lot of hours on it, and that’s why we wanted to explore beyond the gameplay, to reveal micro errors in the user experience that could improve the game sessions and make them even more epic.
If you play it, let us know what you think and if you have encountered other not so positive micro-experiences in Call Of Duty Warzone, leave it in the comments.
