Le Mans Ultimate

Le Mans Ultimate is the official game of the FIA World Endurance Championship and the first dedicated Le Mans game since 1986. Motorsport Games and Studio 397 built it on the rFactor 2 engine, which sim racers rate for its realism and newcomers bounce off. That gap was the brief.

As Head of UX I owned the early access foundation: a platform that had to survive years of live-service development. The job was to make the deep parts reachable without flattening them.

Process

Like endurance racing itself, the time spent planning was a key contributor to the UX’s success. Before there was a logo, we started with information architecture. Ensuring the game navigation matched our needs and the user flow aligned with our gameplay loops.

Early Concepting

The main menu concept drew from moodboards and initial style investigations. Inspiration came from manufacturer marketing material, magazine articles, and advertisements built around the World Endurance Championship.

Refined Mid-Fi

Mid-fidelity designs served as the build-off point. Final refinement came from hands-on experience with the UI in-engine.

Final Release

The main menu needed life. Originally we aimed to use in-game renders and video, but technical constraints forced a pivot. The solution: a breathing effect paired with in-game screenshots to introduce the game while bringing atmosphere to the environment. Menu hierarchy was reworked to better apply the law of proximity and similarity.

The team

I ran a team of ten: front-end developers, UX designers, and visual designers in one group, working toward the product rather than their job titles. The UX strategy, the visual direction, and the hiring were mine.

What happened

Le Mans Ultimate launched into early access in February 2024 and ranked in Steam’s top ten global sellers in its first year. Two and a half years on, it holds around 3,000 concurrent players on an average day and peaks above 8,000, all of them racing online through Race Control.