Overview

Lost Ark Mobile is a simplified version of its PC client meant for gamers to play on the go! The game features many of the same mechanics that make Lost Ark unique. However, it offers a reimagined UI and slight gameplay tweaks meant to make the game easier and more fluid on the phone.

NOTE: The contents of this case study may not represent Lost Ark or Smilegates’ views or plans.

Timeline

2 Weeks

Team

Solo Project

My Role

UI/UX Designer

Tools

Figma, Photoshop



Screens

Mobile Features



Main HUD





Game Menu





Inventory - Gear





Inventory - Skins





Inventory - Engraving





Inventory - Gems





Inventory - Cards




The Goal

To preserve Lost Ark’s key game mechanics while simplifying the UI to fit a mobile device.
Analysis

Establishing Main Components

For this project, I wanted to focus on three main aspects of the game, the main HUD, inventory, and game menu.


01 Main HUD

Much of the UI for this portion followed other mobile MOBA and MMO games featuring a joystick and attack button combo.


02 Inventory

The inventory is joined with the character profile to facilitate easier access with equipping items and checking stats on characters.


03 Game Menu

The game menu follows similarly to Lost Ark’s PC client. However, it is streamlined to ensure it caters to a simpler game on mobile.




Ideate

Sketches

Before starting the prototype, I made some quick sketches of the three components that I wanted to focus on during this project.




Lo-Fi Prototype

The Basic Framework

I then created lo-fi prototypes to establish a general sense of what the final mockup would look like. During this process, I focused on three key points:


01 Simplification

The main theme of the game remained similar to the PC version to preserve cohesiveness with the overall brand identity. Lost Ark Mobile remains to be positioned in the market as a simplified “subunit” of the main game on PC.


02 Mechanics

Since mobile games restrict the complexity of games, certain mechanics had to be finetuned to make gameplay more enjoyable, while still maintaining the niche qualities that make Lost Ark stand out as an MMO.


03 Theme

The main theme of the game remained similar to the PC version to preserve cohesiveness with the overall brand identity. Lost Ark Mobile remains to be positioned in the market as a simplified “subunit” of the main game on PC.




Hi-Fi Prototype

Finalized Mobile Design

Feel free to check out the final prototype below! ↓








Design System

Core components Of Lost Ark Mobile




Closing Thoughts

Reflecting On The Project

Takeaways

This project really opened my eyes to how complex game design really is. I was able to learn more about how mobile games are structured and how different they are from PC games.


Challenges

The most challenging part of this project was figuring out which parts to keep from the PC version because I wanted the mobile game to function as close as it could to Lost Ark as possible. Due to the nature of Lost Ark already being a difficult and complex game, it was extremely challenging to try and simplify it to a mobile version.


Next Steps

If I were to work more on this project, I would definitely expand on the capabilities of this game. So far I only looked into recreating the inventory, main HUD, and menu system. However, MMOs have much more to offer and I would want to present all those aspects.