DESTINY 3 DIRECTOR UI - PERSONAL PROJECT

6 hours ago
10 min read

In truth, I left Destiny 2 after playing Lightfall.

I didn’t leave because I didn’t love the universe; rather, I left because of the removal of paid content, sunsetting, fighting the same four races since 2014 and microtransactions. I still have fond memories of being a part of the Destiny 1 Closed Alpha, to theory-crafting with friends, and playing my first raid. I have kept up-to-date on content updates and lore by watching content creators like xHOUNDISHx, Evade, LUCKYY 10P, Aztecross, and My name is Byf.

When they changed the Director from the Solar-System map we were used to, to a flat grid like Netflix has, it felt like we were losing a part of the game’s identity. I couldn’t just be mad at this being a Designer; I had to understand what was wrong with it and how to create a solution.

So I bought all the new DLC on sale, came back to play on Steam, and began to create my own version of a Destiny 3 Director, which would be a fan-made, non-commercial design focused on navigation, legibility, and relating to the universe emotionally.

Project framing and disclaimer

This project is:

This is a concept for an independently created UI project, and is not associated with or endorsed by Bungie.
In creating this UI, I used both Figma and Affinity Studio, with every piece of UI either being hand-drawn or generated through image tracing.
All of the UI elements were developed without AI assistance except for the alien entity 'Three'; that asset was generated through an AI image engine, and then significantly modified in Affinity Studio.

All trademarks, game titles, and related assets belong to their respective owners. No proprietary or unreleased Bungie materials were used at any point.

My goal is not to “fix” Destiny, but to show how I would develop a galaxy map in Destiny 3 and hopefully spark a conversation with both the community and developers who care about where the franchise goes next.

Design problem: why the old Director mattered

The original Destiny Solar System provided a visual representation of a location as opposed to just selecting the level; it provided an indication of progression (represented by new nodes, expansions and seasonal activities over time); and it created a balance between being visually pleasing and having clear information regarding location.

The newer Netflix‑style Director gains some information density, but everything now exists in a flat carousel that’s harder to recall. The director loses its sense of wonder as the cosmos collapses into a content list, a problem already identified in a talk conducted by David Candland at GDC between 43:00-49:00 called “Tenacious Design and The Interface of Destiny” (GDC Festival of Gaming, 2016).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zp4NZ8i80QI

(GDC Festival of Gaming, 2016)

I set out to create a Director that could scale to a Destiny 3 sized universe, keep the galactic feel of the original, support modern needs like difficulty tiers, matchmade activities and seasonal hubs that feel great on both controller and mouse/keyboard. To get there, I drew heavily from Warframe’s Star Chart while staying firmly grounded to Destiny’s visual identity.

The Galaxy Map: making the Milky Way feel like home

A Milky Way galaxy map would allow Destiny to become a galactic travelling saga, providing a pure, simple and readable overview of many of the major systems in the universe including Sol, TRAPPIST-1, TOI-700, Kepler-62, Proxima Centauri, Gliese 357, and A2G Aridian. Each star system would group content into one easy to find place, waypointing storyline missions, location of all the new expansions, and also where all your friends are.

This map creates a radial arrangement with Sol being at the centre and all of the systems radiating out from the centre of the galaxy, this represents Destiny's want to focus on Earth and the Traveller, however also gives all of the new systems their own weight and presence. Each system has a nebula effect that encompasses the colour assigned to that individual star systems.

The circular boundaries outlining each nebula indicate that clicking any point in a system will direct you to that system’s local map. Theres a small difficulty cluster in the bottom left hand corner to change the difficulty of the game across the board, akin to Warframes steel path switch. The galaxy map is intended to emphasis the players emotional connection and immersion instead of scrolling through a content library.

Once you select a star system, the UI shifts from galactic map to local star system.

Kepler-62

I envision Kepler-62 as a time-warped, broken system being observed by a fourth-dimensional being known as “Three”. Kepler is the main point of interest with the planets Ceto, Dione and Bia orbiting it creating a visual hierarchy. The names of the planets are references to Greek deities suppose to the original naming conventions 62a, 62b,62c, etc (Wikipedia contributors, 2026).

(Wikipedia contributors, 2026)

Three is positioned in the lower right of the screen, implying an encounter or patrol location, furthering the theme of being "watched" by Three. An activity bar is located on the left side, which is made up of many familiar sigils strikes, crucible, gambit, trials of osiris and raids/dungeons, giving immediate access to core activities. The layout answers three major UX questions:

What you can do here (planet nodes and social hubs like Caldera).
Who is involved (The Nine, among other factions)
What it feels like (a mood of cosmic unease with Three watching).

Trappist-1

I imagined TRAPPIST-1 as a hardened Cabal stronghold where Empress Caiatl would rally her fleets for war, and every design decision reinforces that militarised identity: The fractured planet of Torobatl dominates the map as the central battleground, with Xivu Arath’s Throne World hanging beneath visually tethered to suggest it’s the missing half of Torobatl.

The visual choice for Torobatl was inspired by the concept art of Xivu Arath shrouding her surrounding in darkness, my thoughts are that she pulled the environment in her throne world. However, Xivu has now been separated from her throne world by Eris so I determined that Xivu’s connection would have to be reestablished to allow Xivu to release her hold over Torobatl, which would start a war. This would prehaps be a good starting point for Destiny 3.

Sol

(Bungie, 2024)

Sol serves to provide an emotional centre for all of Destiny’s players, with The Pale Heart being at the centre of all that. With the Pale Heart I would suggest utilising the location to create procedural content using tile sets from new locations similar to Warframe. Hand crafted experiences are great, however, randomisation of the activity and encounters could minimise player burnout. To explain the procedural nature of the Pale Heart I suggest anything the guardians and ghosts observe can manifest within the traveller.

Activity navigation

When a player selects a location or area of interest, this takes them to a quest view which intentionally associates the progression of specific acitivities to the area itself similar to Warframes star chart. The left portion of the screen contains a single large, minimalist rendering of the location. On the right side of the screen there is a readable listing of available missions associated with the location, with the names of each listed mission (Transmigration, Temptation, Exegesis, Requiem, and Ascent) clear and easily scannable. A quest, strike, exotic mission, raid, etc would be listed when it becomes available. This removes currently abstract menus, helping players associate the locations with activities.

In addition to this, the activities structure (strikes, lost sectors, patrol events, exotic missions, raids, and replayable quests) are completely separate from campaign missions so that new players do not lose track of their story making navigation through the campaign quick and easy (click & go!).

Production

In Figma, I designed and prototyped the layouts of different visual elements, layouts and reusable assets. I also cleaned up the logos and icons after vectorising them in Affinity Studio by removing any excess noise and making sure that silhouettes were as sharp as possible before I composed the finished render. These assets will make it much easier to create future projects and improvements to the user interface, since they can be easily re-themed.

I then used Affinity Studio for the visual polish of the user interface by editing nebulae and planets. All of the UI elements that I created (icons, frames, rings and indicators) are all vector-based, which means they will remain razor-sharp even when viewed on a 4K display and can easily be re-themed.

The only piece of AI-generated content in this project is the entity "Three." Initially created with the help of AI, the original concept received a considerable amount of manual editing and repainting to produce a realistic render of Three.

Interaction thinking

Although these are static shots, every screen was designed with focus, movement and animation in mind:

Radial selections for the individual star systems would have a subtly tilt or parallax towards the cursor or stick input akin to the existing animation in the game.
I envision the transition from the galaxy map to the local selected star system to be a smooth fly‑through rather than hard cuts, whereby the nebula on the galaxy map enlarges and unveils the selected system.
Social prompts and difficulty toggles should stay anchored to the corners, preventing friction when players navigate through the galaxy.

Final message

The inspiration behind this project is similar to all those lore videos and build guides we stay up to watch at 2:00 AM, by everyone who truly cares about this universe, even when we are frustrated with the game's state. Playing the game again was nostalgic, and I believe Destiny can still continue its success. The framework is there, and luckily, Bungie has a lot of skilled staff. If you would like to give any feedback or project requests, please leave a comment below.