AAA Game Brand identity // Visual design // Motion design, film // Product design, UX, UI // Art direction // Campaigns // Typography // Print // Packaging, merchandise, OOH // Events // More
Warface: Welcome to the New World Order
Launching and sustaining a global AAA shooter. 25+ Million registered gamers globally. Choose your class.
Context
Warface is a highly successful free-to-play AAA shooter with a massive global player base. Maintaining engagement in a competitive genre requires a seamless blend of high-octane gameplay and clear, accessible UI.
Challenge
Rebranding Warface was a complex challenge: to build a distinct visual brand for Warface that could support a live-service model across multiple markets, ensuring the UI/UX remained intuitive through constant updates and expansions.
The original design, inspired by 80s-90s robot TV shows and anime, didn't resonate across all markets—especially for European and Russian gamers.
Strategy
Focus on "Visual and Product Design" to bridge the gap between intense action and functional utility. The goal was to create a brand identity that felt rugged and military-focused but modern and clean. The rebrand involved collaboration with multiple teams and happened loudly and confidently: bold colours, cleaner logo, and art style that leveraged in-game 3D graphics instead of the previous anime style. The new approach used 'dynamic blocking' to create a structured-yet-chaotic look that worked across print, merchandise, and digital platforms.
There were two main websites for Warface: the game website and the product page on the developer's site, Crytek.com. Several microsites were also designed and developed for targeted campaign purposes.
With the redesign, it was important to focus on the user experience as the websites acted as the first base for them to be interested in the game. Interaction feedbacks, such as a change in colours or slight animations for mouseover or click effects, were important.
What I did
As hands-on Creative/Art Director, I led the UI/UX and product design for the game and its web ecosystem. I also directly created the brand and visual identity, directed the typography, packaging, merchandise, and OOH campaigns that launched the game into new territories.
Outcome
Helped establish Warface as a leading title in the genre, with a robust design system that supported global campaigns, merch, and live events.
The new style of bringing more of the game into the design also led to other fun experiences. For example, booths in game conventions were made more engaging, e.g. by building a life-size military plane and bringing in real vans, barracks and palm trees to mimic one of the game environments (in the game, there's a scene similar to this in the "Favela" level).
The new in-game UI introduced a “storytelling” within the game settings, e.g. starting from the lounge/relax area, then when a mission is selected, the characters move to the lockers to select equipment, and it ends with them entering the helicopter, from which they are deployed to start the game. This was mimicked in conventions with the booths.
Trailers and film were reflective of the brand and visual identity, but also directly called the gamers to action: Choose your class.
And to connect with the community and build a rich user engagement and experience, it was important to look at what can be brought from the game into real. For example, limited edition Warface and Blackwood (the two factions of soldiers in the game) coins were produced as collectable merchandise, which was given exclusively to players and fans. The coin is made of light metal and placed in a clear container, much like a medal.
>> Check out Crytek // CRYENGINE for more game booth examples. <<
Tags: Brand identity and governance // Experience design // Visual design // Product design, UX, UI // Campaigns // Motion design, film // Print // Packaging, merchandise, event spaces, OOH // Creative direction // Art direction // MORE
