When I was interviewed for the role I was informed that their progression map had actually removed the title of Lead Designer as they felt all designers should be practical, rather than managerial. I don't really care about my title and I ended up doing what I love anyway, which is designing games and helping other developers.

I worked mainly on DiRT Rally 2.0 but I also designed the single player mode for what would become EA WRC. One of my first big tasks was actually getting the previously released DiRT 4 ready for release in China, which was in itself an interesting experience.

My team was filled with people who were not only incredible developers but also people for whom Rally was a passion. We took research trips out to rally meets, played the games competitively together and I learned a lot from their knowledge.

We started the plans for the WRC game before Lockdown and continued with them from home, which was a much simpler and more effective passage of time than any of us expected. Stand-ups, meetings and development continued as normal for the most part, just at home instead of a long commute to the office.

We were transitioning from the proprietary Codemaster's Ego Engine to the new Unreal Engine 5.0 for the first time in Codemaster's history, which didn't massively affect the design department except that we didn't have some of the usual constraints around the length of a race and that development time was going to be tight.

I designed the Career Mode, where players can choose the tier of competition they start in and live the life of a rally driver, starting as a privateer and developing relationships with sponsors, creating a support crew and graduating to the highest echelons of the sport.

I left after the design was completed and was unaware of how much of the design would end up in the final game, but everything from the sponsor targets to the car builder were all included, which was amazing to see after its launch.

This was the game I was brought in for. Initial struggles regarding lootboxes were swiftly tucked away!

I was a designer on the project from concept to completion and through much of its Live Service. My main responsibility was with the Historic Championship game mode but I was also involved in all other elements.

This project was the first in which I worked alongside a designer who was completely dedicated to the UX of the game. It was fantastic to have such support and vision over the entire game and I believe that embracing this as a team and working together to make sure everything was seamlessly integrated made all the modes better.

I worked heavily with the Junior Designers to get them used to the day to day of design, from dealing with version control to writing better documentation. We also had one special Junior Designer - a rally driver and eSports champion who helped us to understand what real rally was actually like.

I also made the initial designs for almost all of the DLC skins for the vehicles, paying attention to what the community was interested in.

Different regulations in China meant that this game had to have some core areas, such as multiplayer, completely removed, and DLC treated as unlockable parts of the game as it couldn't be sold on a storefront.

Combining this with a lot of back and forth on Localisation and UX flow, this marked my first experience of Codemasters, as I had to learn all the internal tools from a designer who had already handed in their notice, before he left for his new job!