TopSpin 2K25 was more than just another release — it was a chance to bring tennis back to fans who had been waiting for years to see the sport represented at its best. Every decision was made with the goal of creating a true home for tennis lovers, blending authenticity, excitement, and respect for the game.
In 2024 I was invited to Game Access 2024 as a speaker.
My presentation was focused on my experience in delivering TopSpin 2K25 with the given time constraints and the peculiar team distribution around the world.
Here are some key slides of the presentation.
An important key factor of the production was the team composition. We had four main components in the what we called UX/UI pod, that managed to keep the workflow stable.
UX was the latest addition, which means that before me joining, the team weight on UI art and engineer was heavy.
All of those departments were enriched by third party vendors all scattered in different locations remotely.
Being both a new joiner and leader at the same time gave me the chance to spot some opportunities.
- Providing a fresh point of view, from someone not biased.
- Being able to reach out to each colleague and spot common issues, blockers.
- Measuring expectations from me, and understand what is already working well.
The given time to onboard myself while I was learning about the game and team at the same time was enough to recognize where I could have inserted myself as UX designer in a game already in production.
I usually do not talk about tools, but in this case it was clear that one winning element was how the UI lead built a base structure for the Figma file that was very clear. My goal at that point was to work using it and possibly to improve it whenever it was possible.
The usage of dedicated covers and dividing the pages into categories was definitely good for readability, especially in a game rich of features like this.
While each document itself was clearly showcasing how the UX and UI areas were working side by side, allowing to compare and intervene whenever it was needed.
After the first weeks, we got the right rhythm but we still had a big room for improvements.
The UX team was able to move on smoothly and take the tasks from the other departments.
But the big issues were still ahead of us, the time zone issues were clashing with our schedule, while the UX was still the bottleneck due to the amount of features coming. So in that case the solution that I came across was kind of direct: inviting the people to work together in person for few weeks.
This solution came out to be decisive element for us.
Above all, TopSpin 2K25 reinforced for me how essential it is to balance process with people. Keeping track of progress, milestones, and details was critical to delivering a AAA title, but just as important was listening to every team member, sharing ideas openly, and building trust through communication.
It’s this combination of structure and collaboration that made the project not only successful, but deeply rewarding to work on.