Massive User Interface Overhaul Incoming
- XOOM
- Aug 4
- 4 min read
This update is profoundly important, as it directly targets one of the worst parts of WWII Online's new user retention: The user interface (UI).
For the better part of 20 years, our UI has been pretty much the same and lost in time... that is until now. The updates you'll be reading about today are actually in final testing phases and are nearing deployment.
Our goal was to simply better direct users to the engaging parts of WWII Online by providing better guidance (on-screen helpers and tutorials); by organizing and reducing information where possible, making several things more intuitive to include an all-new mission creation paradigm, making some things like objectives much more obvious, adding in the long sought after Instant Action button and more.
Thank you to our active paid subscribers and 2026 funding donors for making the following possible. Please consider subscribing and/or upgrading at https://account.wwiionline.com/login to help us do more!
VIDEO DEMO IS RECOMMENDED TO WATCH
Due to the amount of changes and gaining maximum awareness of what's coming, we strongly encourage you to watch the video below and share it out to others for greater recognition. Thanks for watching!
PERSONA SCREEN
The new "Persona Screen" eliminates a previously boring experience with limited information on what is actually going on in the campaign. Now users logging in can see the current map state before picking a side with more information.
Persona Screen update includes:
Tutorial helper for new installs / brand new players to guide them.
Strategic overview of map on the screen.
Strategic positions owned by side (town ownership).
Campaign information (campaign number and total days, and server time).
Active Battles will show any objective on a town.
1 Active = Some objective on Grobbendonk.
0 Contested = Not contested, if it was, it'd change to a 1.
Persona screen music returned (old school WWII Onliner's will remember this).
Side specific joining, Allied on the left, Axis on the right.
Instant Action buttons for each side below the primary join button.
This will place users with the first available weapon in the most popular Army mission corresponding to the side clicked.
Static "How to Play" guidance (lower left of map).
Map legend (lower right).
"Fight for Freedom" tagline for Allies, "Join the Blitzkrieg!" tagline for Germans.
Primary characters represented for each side.
Much to my surprise, we did not have a guided tutorial on the first or second screen of WWII Online. This has now been resolved and automatically displays on fresh installs for new or returning users. They can hit the ? button anytime to reactivate.
ACTIVE BATTLES SCREEN
This is a completely overhauled "Active Battles" screen that simplifies objective and mission navigation, and adds an entirely new mission creation paradigm.
Active Battles Screen update includes:
Tutorial helper for new installs / brand new players to guide them.
Current Objectives (Target) which is Town labels (seen on the left bar).
Filters: All Objectives, Attack Objectives or Defense Objectives.
Relevant activity, calculates overall mission participants and prioritizes their ranking.
Missions which correspond with that same Objective (seen on the right bar).
Attack missions are ranked by:
If mobile spawn active, take priority.
Then look at overall population.
Defense missions are ranked by population exclusively.
Selected strategic facility found at the center-top of the map (ex. Turnhout).
Branch selection (lower left). Soldier = Army, Plane = Air Force, Anchor = Navy.
City Search helper found at the upper left of the map.
ORDERS FROM HIGH COMMAND: A new persistent message that can be edited by any HC officer rank Colonel or above. Guide players better!
Instant Action buttons for each branch.
One-click will automatically deploy players to most popular mission.
It selects the mission and the first available weapon.
If Air Force or Navy doesn't have a mission, and they click instant action on those branch pages, it'll redeploy them to the best available Army mission.
The Instant Action button is intelligent enough to bypass a non-spawnable (due to no supply available or mission ended) and try a new mission.
Instant Action button offers feedback of what it is doing when clicked (Deploying, Redeploying, Checking Army Missions, Unavailable, Join Failed, etc).
The new mission creation paradigm coming to WWII Online is significantly important! Check the above demonstration video for better recognition of what this represents.
FEEDBACK IS WELCOME
Let us know what you think by commenting on the article below!
What are your initial impressions?
What is your favorite part of the new UI?
What did we miss?
How do you think new and veteran players will use it?
If you have questions, let us know!
We anticipate an Open Beta test on this before going full live to make sure you all have an opportunity to evaluate and get familiar. Standby for more news on this. Thanks for reading!
Looks great. I see the first screen has that frontline map.
(1) Can that be turned off because the current frontline map is known to crash peoples computers.
(2) Or did the frontline thing get fixed?
I like the new UI a lot and a huge step in the right direction. My one concern re:
“It selects the mission and the first available weapon.”
Currently the spawn list is a bit haphazard. For example until recently the default unit if SMGs ran out was spawning the mortar. I would recommend to make spawnlist hierarchical. Instant Action users should spawn in first as SMG, next as semi, next as bolt, and only then as other units. “First available weapon” must be synonymous with “best weapon”. Maybe a popup explaining the nuance of supply available to spawn would help new guys. “Why do I have a mortar when this dude just spawned an auto???” << need to avoid…
The new branch switching UI is a vast improvement to that UX. Good job.
I would like the high command message to also be a pop up whenever I join the side. It would also pop up anytime I exit a mission and it has changed. Put an opt out checkbox at the bottom of the pop up message for anyone that doesn’t like the feature. This way I can’t miss it. (Or somehow make it opt in so people aren’t annoyed with it)
What if instead of automatically forwarding someone from the navy instant action into the army when there is no mission, the button says “no available mission. Spawn army instead?” This gives the user good feedback that…
With attention spans as short as they are right now, you should probably make a condensed video with the highlights as well. If I'm a new player and looking to learn about the game, I'm not sure I am going to sit around for 27 minutes of video explaining changes to the UI. Just a thought, maybe have both?
That’s Great !