Earlier work · Microsoft Studios, 343 Industries · 2012

Halo 4

Menus, scoreboards and the heads-up display for the biggest Halo launch yet: $220M on day one.

Role: UI developer

in sales on day one: $220M
players in the first 5 days: 4M
hours played in those 5 days: 31.4M
on Metacritic: 87

Halo 4 in first person, mid-firefight in a sunlit hall. The heads-up display shows a shield bar at the top, a grenade count and motion tracker on the left, the weapon and ammunition at top right, and the team scores at bottom right.

I developed Halo 4's menus, scoreboards and heads-up display alongside designers, motion designers and shader developers, against a holiday launch deadline.

It made $220M on day one. In the first 5 days, 4M players spent 31.4M hours in it, and those hours ran through the menus, the scoreboards and the HUD.

Menus: Game Informer called the front end "smooth and streamlined" and "easy to navigate," across campaign, War Games, Spartan Ops and Forge.
Scoreboards: Halo 4 scored points, not kills. The scoreboard had to make the new rule readable at a glance.
HUD: shaped like the visor, and see-through. One interface review said it "doesn't distract you."

A HUD is the job at its strictest: everything the player needs, at the edge of their vision, while something is shooting at them. No review names me; this is a team's work, and my part was building it.

The Infinity menu. A list reading War Games, Spartan Ops, Forge and Theater, with Spartan Ops selected, beside a glowing blue hologram of a starship. — Fig. 1

The Forge Setup screen: four large tiles for Game Type, Map, Game Options and Start Forge, with Map highlighted, and a player card below. — Fig. 1

First-person view of an enemy Spartan leaping overhead in a bright corridor. The heads-up display shows the shield bar, grenades, motion tracker, ammunition and score. — Fig. 2

First-person view of a hazy, sunlit structure with a waypoint marker floating over a weapon in the distance. The ammunition count glows on the rifle and the game mode is labeled at bottom right. — Fig. 2