By Sam Chipera - [DE]Sam

Pablo Alonso has taken a unique path through Warframe — from UI programmer to Design Director.

Pablo’s been with Digital Extremes now for 13 years, joining two years before the launch of Warframe and working on some of the studio’s previous projects.

The transition from prior Digital Extremes projects to Warframe didn’t immediately mark the shift away from UI (user interface) work. Delving into Warframe’s UI was his focus, even two years before launch.

However, the road to becoming the Design Director slowly revealed itself. Pablo’s critical work in UI and early influence on the user experience slowly led to a bigger and bigger role in designing Warframe as a whole.

“Every now and then, I'd have little things that I'd be like, ‘Hey, maybe we should do this or that,’” Pablo said. “Once the team started liking those changes that were not UI things, I eventually started getting more and more involved.”

As Pablo explains it, at one point or another, he just started building Warframe with a game design perspective in mind.

“I don’t think it’s a very usual path — people don’t tend to go from UI programmer to Design Director.”

It's been a rollercoaster year for Pablo. Even as he’s progressed through Digital Extremes with game design ideas, concepts, and implementations, covering more ground as the Design Director has naturally brought new challenges.

There’s been quite a lot of evolution internally — not just for Pablo. With other lead roles for Warframe changing, Digital Extremes continues to evolve. Part of Pablo’s role now is nudging that evolution in the right direction.

“The design team itself has changed a lot, and it’s not as dependent on a single person having to get things done,” he said, “Right now, it’s feeling as good as it’s ever felt. It’s only gonna get better because the team is really starting to get solid now.”

Pablo’s experiences through both his years at Digital Extremes and his new role as Design Director also ensure one core value in his work: to keep the fun consistent for players by adding new, fresh experiences and ideas to Warframe, while keeping what makes Warframe special.

He believes that working with Warframe for so long has become another aspect of his personality, and his goal is for both him and the community to have fun playing. And with that, he explores what makes other games enjoyable.

“I think about what makes a game stick, and what about that that makes games fun?” Pablo said.

“I always try to peel it back to where the fun is, but also how to keep the game fresh 10 years in. And for game direction, you need a lot of intake and output, so playing lots of other games and watching movies can always help inspire new ideas.”

A goal of Pablo’s is to try, watch, and play everything he can. For years, he’s maintained this goal, watching game development from people like Masahiro Sakurai, who create videos about making games to the best of one’s ability, and looking at everything one can do to develop a strong sense of intake and output.

“You gotta keep pushing ideas in and put some out; not all of them will be winners, but some will work out,” Pablo said.

And with a live service game, this whole process is an entirely different beast compared to developing and shipping out a traditional video game.

“It’s like walking around a snowstorm, and you kinda know your way, but you can’t see, but you do it and hope you’re right,” Pablo said. “It’s a marathon, not a sprint; you gotta find out what things matter. It’s more like a collaboration with the community to make our game work.”

And in this marathon, Pablo needs to keep the entire team on track while still running himself.

“I wanted to make sure the design team felt like a team, and everyone had the same ideas of what our pillars are, and what our main ideas are, and what is it that we want to evoke from the players,” he said.

Pablo feels the designers are in a good spot and that everyone is working well as the sort of team entity he sought to sculpt. But the challenge of making creative, innovative gameplay continues, especially after spending so much time on one game.

“There’s a way of finding new fun that respects the previous decade but also touches on new ideas,“ he said. “It is challenging, but the challenge is the fun part.”