QUANTUM BREAK INTERFACE

TitleQUANTUM BREAK INTERFACE
BrandMICROSOFT STUDIOS / REMEDY ENTERTAINMENT
Product/ServiceQUANTUM BREAK XBOX CONSOLE GAME
Category C01. Digital Design
Entrant GREAT APES Helsinki, FINLAND
Idea Creation GREAT APES Helsinki, FINLAND
Idea Creation 2 REMEDY ENTERTAINMENT Espoo, FINLAND
Production REMEDY ENTERTAINMENT Espoo, FINLAND
Additional Company MICROSOFT STUDIOS Redmond, USA
Credits
Name Company Position
Niko Sipilä Great Apes Creative Director
Constantin Freche Great Apes Lead Designer
Mikko Saario Great Apes Lead Developer
Mikko Uromo Remedy Entertainment Technical Director
Kyle Rowley Remedy Entertainment Lead Designer
Mikael Kasurinen Remedy Entertainment Game Director
Sam Lake Remedy Entertainment Creative Director
Thomas Hudson Remedy Entertainment Lead Designer
Janne Pulkkinen Remedy Entertainment Art Director
Kyle Miller Microsoft Studios UX designer

The Campaign

We decided to approach the project from an unexplored angle. The game aims for somewhat realistic science fiction and is not set far in the future, the interfaces seen in the screens of the gameplay take their inspiration from actual NASA interfaces so they are crude and functional. Also nothing indicates that future interfaces would look like they do in the movies. Our design is minimal and inspired by modernism and complements the visually complex and groundbreaking VFX of the gameplay.

Creative Execution

For the menus we produced a fully working HTML prototype to test the UX on a full HD tv with a Xbox controller. As for the HUD (heads-up-display) our dedication to absolute minimalism proved to be even more challenging. We didn't want the elements to seem at all blurry so eventually the only option was to align all illustrations into a pixel grid for all resolutions. For the more abstract time powers we simplified each of them to a symbol that would be understandable but would take as little screen real estate as possible. The motion design is extremely functional and to an extent similar to the motion design of mobile apps. This was also important due to the extremely visual and hectic nature of the actual gameplay.

Indication of how successful the outcome was in the market

The look and feel of the interface was very well received as a breath of fresh air as intended. Many gaming industry insiders viewed it as the future direction of AAA game interfaces. Quantum Break has sold nearly a million units as of today.

Since the game was an Xbox exclusive and one the biggest releases of the year for it the interface took some ques from the Microsoft Modern Design (former Metro) Principles. This meant a limited, but distinctive colour palette and clean modernist typography throughout. The building blocks of the design come from the visual identity of the Monarch corporation from the game itself. Target audience consisted of the whole Xbox gaming community, especially gamers interested in story driven first person shooters.