Company of Heroes 3
In Store Game and Front-End Design
Company of Heroes 3 is a WWII themed RTS (Real-Time Strategy) developed by Relic Entertainment. The Company of Heroes franchise has historically been a PC only product, but with the release of Company of Heroes 3, it has expanded to include PlayStation and Xbox console releases.
As a UX designer on Company of Heroes 3, I was responsible for the creation and quality of design deliverables across the product including: In Game Store, RTS gameplay and Front-end menus.
COMPANY
Relic Entertainment
ROLE
Senior UX Designer
DATE
2023
BRIEF
Elevate the existing UX for the In-Game store and web menus pre-launch.
Research
Given that I joined the project well into the design phase, I began conducting a heuristic analysis of the previous work and research findings from other designers at Relic. This is when I found inconsistencies across front-end design within different menus, particularly with the Store. I then started tidying up interactions and naming conventions to improve the user experience.
I used references from WWII and other WWII games to make updates. While looking at competitors I discovered other abilities such as using Battlegroups within Gameplay and how this end-to-end flow would pan out for COH3. During discover I identified the following pain-points for users:
Inconsistent language
Broken user flows
Lack of messaging
The design intent for The Store was to monetize content while providing a new experience for users to upgrade gameplay and rank higher against other gamers. We began doing this with cosmetics and this is when I discovered a gap in the Inventory (Loadout) experience. I began by updating verbiage to be more consistent with the store and establishing a user flow where the gamer could validate their ownership.
Planning
We knew that we wanted to give users the option to also purchase ‘Battlegroups’ for advanced users to improve gameplay and we would need a way to implement this in the store. During this period, I updated the user flows for viewing and assigning Battlegroups and leveraged these design patterns within the store interactions.
UPDATE: (leveraging gameplay design across the E2E experience)
In Store Solution
I leveraged the gameplay design including merit and abilities to engage users into purchasing Battlegroups within the Store. By doing this, I upgraded the users’ game experience. Keeping consistent with other design patterns, I updated the Store navigation to include a new Battlegroup tab with tiles that displayed a modal with all of the content the user would be able to utilize in gameplay.
Designed with a System
Defining basic elements within Figma to help design become more consistent throughout the project. Style changes later on were easy to orchestrate.
Summary
The design challenge was the scope of this project vs. resources and timeline. Unfortunately I left this project shortly after launch and didn’t see data but in hindsight, I would have liked to spend more time testing out different iterations and improving user flows before launching a full experience. The Store ultimately still has many gaps to this day and a lot of potential.
COH3 struggled with mixed reviews on release. Looking at what we accomplished, I am very proud of producing the first In Game Store for the Company of Heroes franchise and believe this provides a lot of future opportunity for gamers. I’m also proud of being a part of a Game UX team in RTS gameplay and being faced with a new challenge in Front-End design.