Avatar: Generations

Overview

Avatar: Generations was a mobile turn-based RPG set in Nickelodeon’s Avatar: The Last Airbender universe. With multiple high-profile stakeholders—Navigator Games, Square Enix London Mobile, and Paramount Pictures—the project demanded a careful balance of creative vision, technical feasibility, and brand consistency.

Mandate: Lead UX strategy and execution across cross-functional teams—driving alignment, clarity, and process maturity. I introduced scalable systems and frameworks to streamline collaboration, enhance usability, and elevate the overall player experience.

Key Challenges

Complex Stakeholder Environment: Multiple stakeholders with distinct priorities required meticulous alignment.

Fragmented Teams: Art, Engineering, and Design departments needed a unifying process for seamless collaboration.

High Complexity, Low Clarity: Early UIs and systems (combat, store, PVP) lacked clarity, making onboarding and ongoing engagement challenging.

My Approach

I started as a UI/UX designer translating technical briefs into intuitive designs using Figma. Over time, I transitioned into a leadership role, where I:

Established a Clear UX Process: Created workflows, documentation, and frameworks that guided teams from concept to implementation.

Led a Cross-Functional Strike Team: Collaborated directly with designers, engineers, and artists to unify efforts, iterate quickly, and deliver cohesive solutions.

Data-Driven Decisions: Conducted user research and leveraged analytics to prioritize improvements in key game areas like combat and navigation.

This standardized process served as our roadmap, aligning teams toward common goals.

Goals & Strategy

With improved processes in place, we focused on a clear goal: Identify and target UX friction points to enhance player satisfaction, session length, and monetization opportunities.

We approached this challenge like mastering the elements—balancing creative direction, engineering feasibility, and user needs to deliver a holistic product vision.

Selected Outcomes & Achievements

Revamping the Combat System

Challenge: The original combat UI was complex and unintuitive, concealing the depth of the gameplay.

Solution: Redesigned UI hierarchy and visual cues—including color-coded borders, intuitive icons, and turn-order visibility—to surface gameplay depth and improve strategic flow.

Result: Players found the combat more intuitive, spending more time exploring battles and engaging with the game’s strategic depth.

Clarity in combat led to more satisfying and informed decision-making for players.

Consistent, Scalable Design Systems

Challenge: A UI-heavy game demands consistent menus, modals, and navigation patterns.

Solution: Built a modular design system guided by intuitive navigation and minimalist principles. Developed reusable components to ensure consistency and accelerate design-to-dev handoff.

Impact: Reduced development time, minimized design inconsistencies, and fostered player trust through predictable interfaces.

Consistency builds user confidence and streamlines development.

Store & Monetization Improvements (Roadmap)

Challenge: The in-game store was difficult to navigate, impacting monetization potential.

Proposed Solution: A store redesign incorporating clearer navigation, categorized offers, and transparent pricing. Though not fully implemented before the project’s end, the roadmap was established to support future improvements.

PVP System Implementation

Challenge: PVP is core to long-term engagement, requiring clarity in matchmaking, ranking, and rewards.

Solution: Created interactive prototypes and animation-driven flows to visualize PVP progression, rival stats, and match outcomes—ensuring clarity and player motivation.

Result: Enhanced user retention by making competitive play more accessible and rewarding.

A transparent PVP system motivates players to compete, return, and invest time in the game.

Learnings

While we delivered strong design solutions and received positive user feedback, external business decisions ultimately led to the project’s cancellation. Changing priorities and limited market traction prompted Paramount and Embracer Group to sunset the game.

The biggest takeaway? Designing successful products in gaming—especially in high-stakes, multi-stakeholder environments—requires more than elegant interfaces. It demands strong leadership, empathy for both players and partners, and processes that bring clarity across disciplines.
If you’re working on something ambitious and looking for a UX leader to help align teams and deliver results, let’s connect.

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