by anja.kljajic - Interaction Design -

User Interfaces in Video Games 6/10

game genres

User Interfaces in Video Games – The quest for genre-appropriate and usable game UI

In my last post I introduced the concept of diegetic, non-diegetic, spatial and meta interfaces. You may have noticed that some of them were mostly tied to specific genres, and since my thesis would like to explore how interfaces can be genre-appropriate, I thought it would be appropriate to introduce these genres.

Game Genres

The following graph [1] shows the most played game genres in the 2nd quarter of 2025. There’s a wide range of genres from shooters to puzzles and what I find interesting is that the most successful genres would have the most people, which means that the UI probably also caters to the masses.

Graph 1: Share of video gamers worldwide who have played games in select gaming genres in the past 12 months as of 2nd quarter 2025
Source: [1]

Now let’s take a look at some of the most important genres as well as a few visual examples of them to get a good idea of the UI elements and styles.

Action Adventure – Action games encompass an incredibly large arsenal of sub-genres, such as action-adventures, platformers, stealth games etc. and rely on good hand-eye coordination [2]. The UI here can range depending on the sub-genre and focus of the game but do often include health bars, currency and ammo indicators.

Figure 1:
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Source: [3]
Figure 2: Grand Theft Auto V
Source: [4]

Puzzle – Another genre that relies on hand-eye coordination, albeit very different in style. Puzzle games rely on simple logic and have thus seen a big audience within the casual mobile games scene. Brighter colours help with differentiation for quick mental grouping of objects.

Figure 3: Candy Crush Saga
Source: [5]
Figure 4: Tetris Ultimate
Source: [6]

Racing – Racing games rely on mini-maps to mirror navigational devices inside the car. Another important UI element within the HUD is the speed, position and lap indicators. Racing games increasingly use minimal and generic design, especially in other screens such as customisation screens.

Figure 5: Forza Horizon 5
Source: [7]
Figure 6: Need for Speed Heat
Source: [8]

RPG (Role-Playing Game) – Role-playing games came from table-top games, where statuses, inventories and treasure finding are important. They’ve come a long way from the classical parchment style of fantasy games to more daring and modern UI with JRPGs. Inventories and managing them play a big role, which is why designing them in an intuitive way can make or break the immersion.

Figure 7: Baldur’s Gate II
Source: [9]
Figure 8: Persona 5
Source: [10]

Shooter – Shooters have been the most popular genre in the past year, so they have to appeal to the largest player base with their UI as well. The elements that are indicative of shooters are crosshairs (the aim indicator in the middle of the screen to help with accuracy) and the ammo and health gauge. A newer development is the shop screens as games shifted to in-game purchases.

Figure 9: Call of Duty: WWII
Source: [11]
Figure 10: Fortnite
Source: [12]

Simulation – Simulation games let players experience real-world situations. They have a massive range, but the two examples I picked are Microsoft Flight Simulator and The Sims 4. Flight Simulator relies on UI similar to racing games, but on another level. It has way more indicators and even more complex UI to mirror actual planes. Sims 4 has a contrasting bubbly style and famously uses spatial UI to help with customising the environment.

Figure 11: Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024
Source: [13]
Figure 12: Sims 4
Source: [14]

Strategy – Games that require thinking and planning, such as Sid Meir’s Civilization and the Age of Empires series [2]. These games show a very good example of the importance of spatial UI. Dealing with the “god” perspective makes individual pieces of land important to discern using markings and icons. Another UI element I’ve noticed is graphs and charts to show post battle results.

When it comes to the style one can notice that the older game [Figure 12] uses a historical, parchment-like style, while the more modern game [Figure 11] uses a more generic and cleaner style.

Figure 13: Civilization V
Source: [15]
Figure 14: Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition
Source: [16]

References

I really like playing games.
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