2020 — 2022 | Case Study / Firaxis Games + 2k Games
Marvel's Midnight Suns
Firaxis Games / 2k +
Flint Collective
STUDIOS
UI/UX Partner
ROLE
PC + Console
PLATFORMS
01 | THE WORK
UI/UX partner, embedded with the Firaxis Games team.
From 2020 through 2021, I worked as the external UI/UX voice on Midnight Suns, fully remote, working into Firaxis's pipeline across multiple game modes and systems.
Embedded as a UI/UX specialist for experimental game modes, working with the Game Designer and Lead UI Director on flows the core team didn't have the bandwidth to explore.
The Challenge
Make complex hybrid systems legible without the screen falling apart. How to approach designing the surface that lets a player read all of them at once without anything getting lost.
02 | THE ASK
Explore the experimental, protect the consistent
The core Firaxis team had a shipping target and a strong existing design system; what they needed was a partner who could chase experimental directions in depth without pulling internal designers off the critical path, and who could simultaneously watch the shape of the broader product as new features came online. The job was to add range without adding overhead.
03 | THE CHALLENGE
Make complex hybrid systems legible without the screen falling apart
The experimental work involved layering multiple game-system patterns on top of each other in ways that asked a lot of the interface.
Multiple concurrent player states, real-time and turn-based phases coexisting, deep economies, and shifting event structures all needing to be readable at once.
The hard part wasn't designing the systems, it was designing the surface that lets a player read all of them at once without anything getting lost.
Documentation that informed and guided hands
04 | THE IMPACT
The bulk of the work was deep flow and interaction documentation for the experimental modes. Annotated screens, interaction logic, controller-input considerations, and edge cases, all built so the Firaxis designers could pick up the work and run with it.
Alongside that, I ran audits and provided ongoing design feedback on adjacent surfaces, flagging inconsistencies, proposing patterns, and helping the team hold a coherent visual and interaction language as new features came online.
Detailed documentation available to discuss under NDA.
05 | A NOTE ON THE ENGAGEMENT
The shape of the trust matters
As the external UI/UX voice on a project of this caliber working alongside the Firaxis design team on this kind of specialist work is something I owe to them. They had already built a strong foundational UI/UX system to extend, and they were the kind of collaborators that make outside work easy: clear briefs, sharp feedback, and the generosity to bring an external voice into the room as a peer.
Building something great is always a team thing, and Midnight Suns is a credit to the people inside Firaxis who carried the work to ship.
