UX Designer rants about Call of Duty MW2 Interface - UX/UI Design Critique

My first time doing this: after playing the new call of duty mw2 for the weekend I thought I would share my thoughts and criticisms of the user experience and user interface of the new game. When first using it, I found it quite frustrating so after a weekend and getting used to it I thought I would spend some time and put out my thoughts on it.
I hope this video is enjoyable and somewhat educational. :)
0:00 Rant begins
1:01 Social page
2:04 Main home page
5:24 Weapons and Operators
6:25 Kill streaks
6:46 Start in-depth on Weapons
12:03 Weapon Customization
13:52 Part part of the UI
14:02 Overview and closing thoughts
#callofduty #modernwarfare #codmw #ux #ui #uxdesign #design #uidesign #review #userexperience #userinterface #designcritique #uxcrit #gaming #gamedesign
UX Critique Disclaimer:
This is just my personal opinion based on my own experience and expertise with no user testing or proper research completed during the review. These are just my thoughts and feedback from looking at and using the UI myself. All suggestions, ideas, feedback, thoughts, critiques, roasting, jokes, and banter are for entertainment purposes, and hopefully worth enough that we can learn something together. Cheers!

[@psiku]

The fact that from this video I am learning new functions of the UI I never knew existed says a lot.

[@daijimin]

My issue is when all I want is to put on a new attachment, I have to navigate to three menus before I can then get to the attachment screen and then put on the attachment.

[@sevanway4799]

And now just imagin to handle all this Vertical bs with a Controller 😂….

[@fizz_time7003]

With controller it doesn’t even matter. The only time controller sucks is when you’re controlling an on screen mouse. Which only kinda sucks. But there’s a difference between horizontal scrolling and vertical scrolling. There’s no difference between horizontal and vertical scrolling on a joystick because the joystick moves Omni directionally. The joystick can go vertical so it doesn’t mess up your mental scrolling vertically because visually it’s possible. There is no horizontal scroll wheel though so visually it’s impossible and that messes up your mental.

[@Cloud3413]

Everything about this video is so true.

[@Ziggy695]

This is such a good video. I thought I was a dumb ass sitting in the menu trying to work things out. Cracked up watching this. Makes no sense. I know nothing about UI but give me a pen, paper and 10 minutes and I'd do better 🤣

[@frostsoul4199]

something that really goes underappreciated about MW2019's UI is that choosing which part of the game you wanna play (MP, Campaign, Co-op) takes you straight to a screen with all of the relevant information regarding that mode. whereas in MWII 2022, you open the game and there's a ton of clutter on screen you don't want to see. if ya wanna play the campaign you have to open the game and scroll down past all of the stuff that regards multiplayer, and stuff pertaining to multiplayer and co-op will remain there, cluttering the screen still until you select the campaign. whereas 2019 it has that no BS approach where you click on what you want right out of the gate and you'll have all of the relevant information right in front of you, no clutter, no BS. not even a need to scroll since all of your choices are in neatly placed boxes that don't take up more screen space than they need. one of the UI types i really enjoy seeing in games like this are Grids. Grids are so much nicer to look at when you have a ton of information and icons on screen, so that way you don't waste time scrolling through stuff just to find the thing you want. hell even previous CoD games like Black Ops 2 had a grid system when selecting weapon attachments, grenades, perks, and scorestreaks. that sort of set up would really help this game when selecting weapons and their respective attachments since there's so many of them. imagine if you clicked on a weapon in your loadout you wanted to swap out and it gives you the categories you can choose from and clicking on which category you wanted would give you a drop down menu with the weapon icons in a grid format with their name planted above the weapon. this would work similarly when you're in the gunsmith, have it set up in a way where clicking on an attachment category would give you a drop down menu with all of the attachments listed inside of it. would also help greatly with the disorganized mess that is the Customization menu where you can change out camos because that desperately needs an overhaul.

[@Argoth100]

Mate I just rage quit because it was a nightmare trying to party chat with three of us cross platform. I'd have an easier time deciphering cave paintings whilst pissed.

[@janellecande]

I've never encountered a UI so beyond terrible.

[@yungtitynac]

funny how the older cods, cod 4 to mw2, maybe up until bo2 mastered the ui and its progressively gotten worse until it makes absolutely no sense. all in the sake of change too, fucking annoying. honestly idc that much cause im not gonna play mwii anymore, just sad all the other cods are dead multiplayer wise.

[@setp2699]

Love your video

[@Fu_XiaoChen]

It's made by a Netflix UI designer and the person doesn't know how video game works

[@IwinMahWay]

Halo reach still sits at the top for ui

[@comfy256]

Some of it looks decent, but compared to Menus like Halo Reach or Black Ops 1, MW2 looks kinda horrible.

[@simondymond8479]

I could not agree more. The UI is absolute garbage. It is hard to imagine that a professional developer would come up with something this absolutely awful.

[@sjc091]

Honestly, and this is totally my fault...if I knew the UI was going to be this GOD AWFUL, I would have never bought the game. Like the UI in this game is so bad that it makes the game unplayable for me.

[@Moon222]

the UX for video games have been getting prettier, but also terribly unintuitive or cluttered. it is so horrible that i would donate my time to fix them for free.

[@jenobarta9695]

As a fellow product / UX designer I 100% agree with this video. Also there are things, with logics behind I still do not understand. For example when your Weapon stash is full, you cannot take faction missions... Why? Because if you do so, and the reward is a weapon there are no UI for deciding whch you want to keep? If yes why i cannot take quests with non weapon rewards? Also what is the purpose of keeping completed missions, on your active mission board? Why do i have to manually unselect them, and then why can I reactivate them again? They are completed! As a whole I do not understand why didn't they followed, well thought out, standard solutions here. Behind general UI design, even in really special cases, there are a lots of research, and testing materials, or already built and tested examples to go by. Why try to "innovate" on this, when there are basically no room, or no reason to do so.

[@NateAustin-of6jc]

Preach it brother! Loved the video. As a UX / Product designer of 20+ years I can't believe they paid someone to actually design this UI. It reeks of a developer lead effort in my opinion and is 100% devoid of any UX / design thinking process AT ALL.

[@SUDAGANGTV]

My sentiment for all these horrible UI trends is that it is equivalent to an artist not knowing when to stop adding details to an already banger drawing. 👌🏾

[@emiliorios8799]

As a visual designer I share your frustration so much Lmaoo It hurts to launch this game. And that’s not even taking into account how shit the actual game is

[@anne-mariegauthier6837]

i feel like some boss just said to the designing team

[@ScaryStoriesShelf]

MAN the devs said More Navigating the menu's less game time LOL

[@DragonFruit97]

As a UI/UX student myself i would very much be interest in a deep dive analysis or even a more casual "rant" on your opinions. Why do you think they designed it this way and what would you do different, without compleaty reverting it to the old vertical style?

[@christianbell2756]

I heard this from watching another KZbin video, although I can't confirm its legitimacy (and don't have a link to the video). With that said, the video went on to state IW did this so they can have a consistent UI/UX between COD Mobile and PC, Xbox, and PS. This doesn't sound too farfetched, so I guess we can blame mobile if that is the case. Again, this may not be that case, just a theory that I can't state is legitimate or not.