When it comes to Zombies HUDs, there are 3 main aspects of them which I think is important to specify when criticizing them.
• Layout (position of each widget)
• Theme (color & visual style)
• Design (shapes, sizes, & the layout of each item within each widget)
In terms of layout, problems with this are *mostly* solved with HUD customization. Obviously it's not perfect, there's still some additional settings and fixes Treyarch should make...
‣ Separating Medals & Notifications
‣ Separating Regular Zombie Healthbars & Special Enemy Healthbars
‣ Ability to move where the "version number" appears on the screen (wish we could get rid of it entirely)
‣ Option to have the "location name" appear on the screen somewhere, even if the compass is disabled.
‣ Classic Score Feed should be available in Standard as well (so glad it's at least in Cursed though)
For the theme, this has been a problem for the past 4 Zombies Modes, where the theme was the exact same as MP/Warzone. Treyarch is attempting to fix this issue by giving players the option to change their HUD theme with a variety of choices. These changes can work in MP & Zombies. Some of them *might* change the design of the widgets too, but the one they showed off recently (the Aetherium theme) does not change the design, it just changes the color and adds some purple lines. As much as I would've preferred they just make a unique HUD for each map that must be used for that map, here's what I hope they do for BO7 going forward...
‣ Each DLC map should have HUD theme specifically made for the map and released with that map, and players should have the option to auto-select the HUD theme that fits each map, so players don't have to keep changing their HUD theme in the settings when they switch between maps.
‣ HUD themes should also change the theme of the perk icons.
For the design, this is what most people are frustrated with. It does seem like some of the HUD themes *might* change the design too, but we haven't seen any of those officially yet, we've only seen a few leaks concepts of them. It's probably too late for a full HUD re-design by default, but I hope they can add HUD themes for future maps that DO change the design significantly into a more unique look. These are some overall changes I hope they make...
‣ Remove the "gun icon", we don't need to see what weapon we are holding
‣ The player health & points widget should be significantly smaller instead of bulging out so far.
‣ The "interact UI" needs to be significantly changed. This is the UI element that pops up whenever you have the ability to interact or pick up something. It's way too blocky and big, the size and shape needs to be resized.
‣ The inventory or "scoreboard" UI could be a lot more interesting and I do wish they were map-unique like they were in Infinite Warfare Zombies.
Overall, I do think Zombies HUDs have been getting better since Black Ops Cold War. They've made tons of improvements since then. But it still doesn't feel like they've gotten close to as good as how HUDs used to be in the BO2-BO4 era of Zombies (excluding BO4 because despite that HUD being very unique, it wasn't very good)