Siege X
About
The next evolution of Rainbow Six Siege introduces Dual Front, a dynamic new 6v6 game mode, as well as deliver foundational upgrades to the core game (including visual enhancements, an audio overhaul, rappel upgrades, and more) alongside revamped player protection systems, and free access that will allow players to experience the unique tactical action of Rainbow Six Siege at no cost.
Goals & Objectives
Modernize
The main goal of Siege X was to modernize the game. After 10 years of the game being live, it was obvious that parts of the game fell out of time and needed a refresh, with more a modern technological foundation, and a more coherent art-style and navigation pattern.
Back to the Roots
Over the years, Siege has gotten a lot of updates through its seasons. This has come with some tonal changes, from a more grounded and gritty setting, to a more e-sports inspired settings. One big goal was to take it back a step into the direction of dark, gritty and tactical encounters. To achieve this, the User Interface has received a major art overhaul in order to unify the elements and establish a new color theme.
Stay Iconic
Rainbow Six Siege has a strong identity. As one of the best tactical PvP first-person shooters in the world it has a unique gameplay formula, and the goal of Siege X was to reinforce this by adding more polish to all its features, improve outdated features and open up access to everyone that wants to play by making it Free to Play!
My Tasks
While working on our next features, including the Clearance Level Rework and Stats screens, the entire UX team was involved in the UI/UX work that was planned for Siege X.
For our cell specifically, this meant that I was responsible for making sure our screens are being adapted properly to the new guidelines and styles, such as new colors, new item tile stylings and iconography reworks.
New Features I worked on
Locker
The first feature that we overhauled is the Locker. To make it fit in with the rest of the game, we adapted the same UI style and UX changes.
Aside from the visual changes, we did not add any other new features or functionality to this screen for release.
Badges
The next feature that we overhauled visually is Badges. We adapted the new UI style, as well as UX guidelines in this screen in order to make it fit in with the rest of the screens.
However, we also added multiple new badges at the same time. The first was the “Siege X” badge, a reward included with the Siege X Pack. The pack gave players a way to unlock content and get started before the launch of Siege X.
In addition to the Siege X badge, we wanted to help players celebrate an important milestone: the year they joined Rainbow Six Siege.
UI Art and UX Design collaborated on the Veteran Badge, a subtle way to display the year a player joined. We used the tier system established by our previous badges, with the highest tier for Year 1, the golden tier (Tier 3) for the second year, and the silver tier (Tier 2) for every following year.
What we liked about this approach is that every year still looks like it holds value, so that every player can be proud of their achievement. On top of that, by making this a badge, players can decide whether they want to show this or not!
Lastly, we added Badges to the Challenge Touchpoints, a new feature released with Siege X.
In this special widget located in the main hub of the game, players can check out their ongoing and upcoming challenges, and it was important to us to add our Badges system to that menu as well.
Career
Of course, we also updated the Career screen to fit the rest of the game.
We also reduced the size of the Replays tile to make room for a new Clearance Level tile. This was an important addition because the Clearance Level Rework rebalanced player levels and introduced a reward track to support new-player onboarding.