XDefiant

// overview

Ubisoft's largest live-service launch

// what I designed

Design contributions

• 3Cs and core prototype I personally built XDefiant's core FPS mechanics in Snowdrop to approximately 80% completion before handing off to senior designers for tuning and polish. Character movement, camera behavior, weapon feel, and moment-to-moment shooting were all prototyped in-engine first, giving the team a working reference rather than a document to interpret.
• Seasonal roadmaps and live content direction Owned the seasonal content cadence across the game's live run – directing new maps, new factions, new weapons, new abilities, and gameplay modes each season. Each season ran on a roughly three-month cycle, requiring simultaneous planning, production, and live ops across multiple content streams.
• Process design and approvals Built the design review and approval pipeline from the ground up – spec templates, review cadences, greenlight criteria, and escalation paths. On a game with distributed teams across San Francisco, Sydney, Osaka, and Saguenay, having clear processes wasn't overhead. It was what kept content quality consistent across studios.
• Distributed team coordination Managed design delivery across four global studios, building cross-site communication rituals and alignment processes that kept all locations working against the same creative direction. San Francisco was the lead studio; the challenge was making every other studio feel like a genuine partner rather than a satellite.
• New features: gameplay modes and bots Directed the design and production of new gameplay modes and the bot system – features that expanded how players could engage with XDefiant beyond its core competitive loop.
• Progression and battle pass Owned battle pass structure, goal-based progression, and limited-time event design – tuning reward loops and player motivation systems across multiple live seasons using telemetry and player behavior data.

// details