While perusing Reddit, as one does, I encountered some whining and moaning about the upcoming Suicide Squad game, specifically the HUD. Fun fact: The screengrab is from this IGN preview, which is surprisingly fair and balanced!
The Reddit comments suck, but that's to be expected from the general public. However, I don't think the HUD is bad; this is just what happens when you have to shove in the insane amount of mechanics that live service games require on the same screen. Continue reading for a breakdown of what's being conveyed here on this screen, with the caveat that I haven't actually played the game.
In the top left of the screen:
- Character you're playing as (shark fin icon)
- Mysterious shark fin icons (lives? revives?)
- Health (yellow bar)
- Shield (blue bar)
- Experience and level
- Message indicating experience was added
In the top center:
- "Data Shards Deposited" is probably the current mission objective
- Progress bar for the mission objective
- Mission objective count
In the top right:
- "Tune Anti-Flash Weapon" - Secondary objective
- "Charges - 2/8" - Progress for the secondary objective
- "✅ 2 - Rounds" - Further progress
In the middle right:
- List of players, with the local player as the second row
- The "Charges" icon reappears here, showing that another player has two more charges
- There's some kind of point ranking that I don't see conveyed anywhere else
- The player color possibly conveys something else; the third player is pink, and they have a little crown symbol due to a "Scavenger-Explosive-Kill-181XP" message
In the bottom right:
- Batman is having a little chat with us
- Minimap
- Button prompts for quick chat actions
Breaking down the minimap (my specialty):
- Shows our current orientation and our field of view
- The position and orientation of the other players1
- Where the other Charges are located
Next, in the bottom middle:
- Our special ability is ready to go, which can be activated by pressing (L1) + (R1) simultaneously (our first indication that this is a PlayStation 5 build)
- We have another ability, but this is currently not ready to go
In the bottom left:
- Three icons in pink, blue, and yellow - It's not immediately obvious to me what these indicate
- Our current pew-pew
- Bullets remaining - Reloadable with (Triangle)
- Type of bullets used
- Skull icon possibly indicating the damage type
- Axe with a progress bar and a snowflake (for ice damage?)
- Three grenades left - Throwable with (Circle)
And in the center middle:
- A giant plus with a 6 and a progress bar - No clue what this means
Finally, we can turn our attention to the center of the screen:
- Press (Square) to do "something"
- Harvest shields with (R2)
- A health bar on the enemy
- Damage numbers popping up of to pretend this is an RPG
In conclusion, that's a lot of shit on the screen. But I don't expect the game to throw all of these elements at you at once. The First Time User Experience (FTUE) is very important to a live service game because obviously this is a bit overwhelming at first glance.
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Players are distinguished with color only on the minimap, which isn't great for accessibility.
