Getting a Roblox studio splash screen change right can make your game feel professional from the second a player hits play. It's that first impression that counts, yet many developers overlook it. When someone clicks on your experience, the very first thing they see isn't your meticulously crafted map or your cool combat system; it's the loading screen. If they're staring at a generic gray bar or a blank screen while the assets load, they might just lose interest before the game even starts.
If you've spent weeks or months building a world, you don't want the entry point to feel like an afterthought. A custom splash screen sets the mood, introduces your branding, and tells the player they're about to experience something high-quality. Luckily, swapping out that default look for something unique isn't as hard as it might seem once you know where to put your files and which scripts to trigger.
Why you should bother with a custom screen
Let's be real—the default Roblox loading screen is fine for a quick hobby project, but it's a bit dry. It doesn't tell a story. When you see a big-budget game on the platform, they almost always have a bespoke intro. Whether it's a spooky flickering logo for a horror game or a bright, vibrant character montage for a simulator, that screen does a lot of heavy lifting.
A custom roblox studio splash screen change allows you to control the narrative. You can show off your game's logo, give credit to your developers, or even provide "pro tips" that cycle through while the heavy assets are downloading in the background. It bridges the gap between the Roblox website and your actual gameplay, making the transition feel seamless rather than jarring.
Getting started with ReplicatedFirst
The secret sauce to making this work is a folder called ReplicatedFirst. If you look at your Explorer window in Roblox Studio, you'll see a bunch of folders like Workspace, Lighting, and ReplicatedStorage. ReplicatedFirst is special because everything inside it gets sent to the player's computer before anything else.
If you put a UI in ReplicatedStorage, the game might try to load a massive 4K texture for a tree in the Workspace first, and your loading screen won't appear until that tree is done. That defeats the whole purpose. By using ReplicatedFirst, you ensure your splash screen is the very first thing the client handles.
Setting up the UI
First, you're going to want to create a ScreenGui inside ReplicatedFirst. You can name it whatever you like—something like "LoadingScreen" usually works. Inside that GUI, you'll add your images, frames, and text labels.
A common mistake is forgetting to set the IgnoreGuiInset property on the ScreenGui. If you don't check that box, you'll have a weird tiny gap at the top of the screen where the Roblox top bar usually sits. For a true splash screen, you want it to cover every single pixel.
Using the right image resolution
When you're designing your image in Photoshop, Canva, or whatever tool you prefer, keep the aspect ratio in mind. Most players are on 1920x1080 screens, but plenty are on mobile devices with weird dimensions. I usually recommend designing your main logo to be centered so it doesn't get cut off or stretched awkwardly on different devices. Using "Scale" instead of "Offset" for your UI positions and sizes is non-negotiable here; otherwise, your splash screen might look great on your monitor but be completely broken for someone on an iPhone.
The script that makes it happen
Creating the UI is only half the battle. You also have to tell Roblox to stop showing its own default loading screen and show yours instead. This is where a LocalScript comes in. You'll want to place this script inside the ScreenGui you just made in ReplicatedFirst.
The most important line of code you'll need is ReplicatedFirst:RemoveDefaultLoadingScreen(). This effectively tells the engine, "Hey, I've got this covered, you can stop showing the spinning circle now."
Here is a basic way to think about the script structure: 1. Reference the ReplicatedFirst service. 2. Call the function to remove the default screen. 3. Make your custom GUI visible. 4. (Optional) Use a "wait" or a loading check to keep the screen up until the game is ready.
Don't just kill the screen instantly, though. If your game is heavy, the player will see your splash screen for a split second, and then they'll be stuck looking at a half-loaded world where the floor hasn't appeared yet. That looks way worse than the default loader.
Making the transition smooth
Nobody likes a screen that just "pops" out of existence. It feels cheap. To really sell the roblox studio splash screen change, you should use the TweenService. Instead of just setting the visibility to false or destroying the UI when the game is loaded, you can fade the transparency of the background and logo.
A nice one-second fade-out makes the transition into the game world feel "premium." You can also animate your logo while it's loading. A slight pulse effect or a rotating shine can let the player know the game hasn't crashed. If nothing is moving on the screen, players tend to get impatient and might Alt-F4 if it takes more than five seconds to load.
Preloading assets
If you want to get really fancy, you can use ContentProvider:PreloadAsync(). This is a bit more advanced, but it's how the pros do it. This function allows you to tell the game specifically which assets (like your main map textures or character sounds) should be prioritized. You can even hook this up to a loading bar in your splash screen. As the assets finish preloading, you update the bar's width. It's a lot more satisfying for a player to see a progress bar move than to just guess how much time is left.
Common pitfalls to avoid
I've seen a lot of developers get frustrated when their splash screen doesn't show up. Usually, it's because they put the script in StarterGui. Remember, StarterGui doesn't replicate until the player's character is ready to spawn. By that time, the game is mostly loaded, and the "splash" part of the splash screen is already over. Always stick to ReplicatedFirst.
Another thing to watch out for is the "Loading" text. If you're going for a specific aesthetic, make sure you choose a font that matches your game's theme. Roblox has added a ton of new fonts lately, so there's no excuse for using the default Arial or Source Sans if your game is a medieval RPG.
Also, keep your file sizes in check. If your splash screen image is a massive, uncompressed 10MB file, the player has to download that image before they can even see the loading screen. Talk about irony. Use compressed PNGs or JPEGs to keep things snappy.
Testing on different devices
Don't just assume it works because it looks fine in the Studio emulator. Studio is great, but it doesn't always perfectly mimic the loading delay of a real server. Once you've implemented your roblox studio splash screen change, publish the game and join it from your phone or a different computer.
Observe how long the screen stays up. Is it too long? Too short? Does the UI scale properly on a tiny screen? If the "Play" button is hidden behind the notch on an iPhone, you've got a problem. Use the Device Emulator in Studio to check these things early on so you don't have to fix them later when you're trying to launch.
Wrapping things up
At the end of the day, customizing your loading experience is one of those small details that separates the "built in an afternoon" games from the "we really care about this" games. It's your chance to brand your work and prepare the player for the world you've built.
It doesn't take much code—just a few lines in a LocalScript and a bit of UI work in ReplicatedFirst. But the impact it has on the player's initial perception of your game is massive. So, go ahead and get rid of that default gray bar. Your players will definitely notice the difference, even if they don't say it out loud. It's all about that polish.