Email:

tianyinglyu@gmail.com

Email:

tianyinglyu@gmail.com

tianyinglyu@gmail.com

Call of Duty Mobile

Call of Duty: Mobile (CoDM) is a first-person shooter developed by TiMi Studio Group (Tencent Games) and published by Activision. Within its first year, the game generated over US $480 million in revenue and surpassed 270 million downloads.

CoDM is a massive game with a wide range of features. During my internship at Tencent Games, I worked on a team of five UX designers, each owning different features. I reported directly to the UX director and served as the lead designer for features including the Drop Zone game mode and the Intro Activity for CoDM’s 2nd Anniversary.

Responsibilities

I designed wireframes and UX documentation, collaborated with game designers to align on design pillars, worked with engineers to identify technical boundaries, and iterated based on feedback from the UX director.

Company

Tencent Games

Timeframe

2021

Category

Game mode

Drop Zone

Drop Zone is a limited-time multiplayer mode where two teams compete for control of a moving zone on the map, which periodically delivers Care Packages to the controlling team.

Trailer

Video Playthrough

Problem

The Drop Zone mode takes place in a highly chaotic environment.

Players must capture and hold rotating objectives to earn care packages and secure victory. With shifting objectives, multiple package drops, and intense combat, the battlefield can easily become overwhelming.

To prevent cognitive overload, we needed to prioritize critical information.

Define Priority

The Drop Zone gameplay consists of two key elements.

Rotating Zone

The drop zone location shifts periodically, which can confuse players if not communicated clearly

Care Package

Players need to quickly distinguish when, where and how to claim the care packages

We defined the priorities using card sort:

Players need quick access to information that helps them survive, capture objectives, and maximize rewards. The key information includes:

We ranked breakdown of the information

Tier 1 – Critical (must always be visible)

Tier 2 – High Priority (situational but frequent)

Tier 3 – Medium Priority (supportive context)

Tier 4 – Secondary (check occasionally)

Combination of Diegetic UI and HUD

The sorted priorities guided my decisions on how to structure and communicate information to players during gameplay

Floating icon to indicate the location, status and distance of Drop Zone (always active)

Floating icon of the dropped care package (only triggered at nearby)

HUD showing the timer

Additional information on mini-map

Wireframes

I designed a system of colors and icons to communicate status information to players.

To reduce friction, players automatically acquire the package when they are the first to approach it. A loading bar indicates progress, which can be interrupted if the player moves away.

To keep care packages a surprise and reduce cognitive load, I designed them so their contents remain hidden until fully acquired. Once collected, the item appears in the Scorestreak panel—an established tap-to-use functionality in the game.

Finally, a highlight effect draws attention to the newly acquired item to remind players.

What I Would Do Different in 2025

Looking back, one key learning is that we can’t rely on color alone to communicate critical states. If I were redesigning Drop Zone today, I would introduce stronger variations in iconography to differentiate the unclaimed, defending, conflicting, and claimed states. By layering in shape language alongside color, these states would remain clear and accessible to all players, including those with color vision deficiencies, while also improving quick legibility in high-action moments.

Some of my other work

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Let's create
something
together.

Hit me up if you have a project in mind or would like to chat

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Let's create
something
together.

Hit me up if you have a project in mind or would like to chat