Minecraft Bedrock PlayStation 4

In December 2019, Minecraft Bedrock was launched for PlayStation 4.

Bedrock version for PlayStation 4 Platform released on December 2019

Among other team members, I worked mainly on the Day One Experience, contributed to making changes to multiplayer features by following Sony’s unique guidelines. 

Disclaimer:
Below is a presentation of some of the work done for the platform restricted by the NDA contract. Data (telemetry), and other details cannot be mentioned here. However, current active players on the PlayStation platform increased by more than double the initial numbers.

The Day One Experience

Problem Statement

Migrating players from Editions to Bedrock was a concern. How to make the transition as easy and pain free as possible to players and to encourage them to stick with Bedrock once they try it out?

The Solution

Migrating players from Editions to Bedrock would be easier to the player with the Import Wizard, called the Day One Experience.

This feature introduces the Minecraft Bedrock to the platform and tackle some of the main differences between Editions and Bedrock:

  1. Unfamiliar UI and icons
  2. Difference in navigation principals
  3. Flow to start the game
  4. Naming conventions
  5. Frustration having to adjust settings to match Editions

Prototyping the Wizard

Working closely with Microsoft, we submitted many iterations to mitigate the problem statement. Since all assets from the game already existed, we worked only with high-fidelity prototypes.
The one below is the final, as can be seen in Minecraft PS4.

a) When a migrating player first starts Bedrock the game recognizes that they are migrating for the first time and a popup, (appearing prior to the Main Menu). The first screens introduce the player to the new features:

b) The Day One Experience, when selected, guides the player through a short series of steps that selects a skin, imports saves and automatically transfers some basic settings from Editions.


c) To keep the experience short and lead the player to the game faster, we added screen tips during the import. This helps Minecraft for PlayStation the chance to display several tips that help to educate the first-time Bedrock player and make the transition a little easier.

Multiplayer Features

As Minecraft is a cross-platform game, after Sony approved Microsoft’s request, we had to find an easy way to identify the player’s from other platforms from PlayStation players. Sony’s request included leaving PlayStation players on the top of any list, and our demand would be creating identifiable ways to separate them.

The final concept was to create lists for Online PlayStation friends, Online Cross-platform Friends (any platform included in this section) and Offline Friends (also prioritizing Sony’s players first). I also suggested adding the PlayStation logo on the Sony player’s profile, following accessibility guidelines. The final approved screens below:

For consistency reasons, this would be the only way to show profiles on the platform.

Minecraft Game Flow

Before the game passed certification, I realized that we needed aligned wording, common feedbacks, interaction steps for many User Stories following Sony’s TRCs.
So I decided to work with the QA team and the engineers to create a complete game flow for all interactions of Minecraft.

The result was astounding, the team and I could cover all the mandatory TRCs, followed by the sign in to Microsoft Account, a complete new interaction to PlayStation platform. We passed certification without issues. Check below: