Shipping Konami × Contra on X8.

Konami partnered with Thirdverse on a Contra-themed DLC for X8. The deliverables were a complete in-game flow built around the Contra brand. A new game mode would be entered from inside the main casual lobby. A paywall for players who hadn't purchased the DLC, real-time progress visible to non-players, and a clean exit through a post-game summary was required.

I was the sole UX designer on X8. The Konami collaboration ran alongside everything else — quick discussions, brainstorms, late-night Slack huddles, fast iterations against a real partner's expectations. The constraints were the same as the rest of the game's UX: standalone-VR hardware limits (no transparency, limited animation budget, no compositing shortcuts), and a fast clock.

The DLC is live on Steam as the X8 Contra Game Access Pack. Check it out.

The DLC's entry point is a “ride” in the main lobby that players (and their friends) can pass through if they have the ticket — i.e., have purchased the DLC. The literal paywall is in-world. Above it, a large marquee displays daily accolades when no run is underway (top player, top duo score) and switches to a live progress bar when a run is in motion — so non-players know at a glance how far along the DLC players are.

Diegetic where possible, but the team — backed by player feedback — agreed an explicit HUD was needed for the Contra mode specifically. With the hardware limitations of a stand-alone VR headset, I had to make beat-by-beat animation steps that were presentable UI with no transparency, no shader tricks etc.

A simple UI to communicate the run's outcome and rewards. Hardware constraints kept it static and clean. Every state was baked-in, and the text/image contents were the only dynamic elements on these screens.

Players who tried to enter the mode without owning the DLC needed somewhere to land that wasn't a brick wall. I designed an in-world console — Konami-styled, contextual, with the path to purchase — that the engine teleports non-owners to.

The X8 Contra Game Access Pack is live on Steam. X8 itself holds a “Very Positive” Steam rating (~81% positive, 196+ reviews at time of writing). The DLC's UX flow — entrance, marquee, HUD, post-game, paywall — is in-game, in production.