We hear a lot about games in development, but the super early stages of the build – when blank boxes are everywhere, bullet decals aren’t implemented and everything looks blocky as hell – are still pretty rare to see. So it’s cool to see this video from Bungie about how Destiny‘s HUD went through multiple iterations, both on how weapon icons appeared, inventory menus worked, and how it all transitioned.
In a video uploaded by Bungie alumni David Candland, who now works at Monolith as their UX design director, you can see several minutes of Destiny‘s UI as it went through various stages.
It’s also a great chance to see some super early prototype footage of Destiny and places like The Tower, well before they had the refinement and sheen that everyone came to know and love. A lot of the textures don’t have any anti-aliasing. Sniper rifles didn’t even have crosshairs at one point, and guns were completely flat while developers worked on getting all the locations and systems in place.
There aren’t many opportunities to get a big chunk of footage from a game that covers so much of the early days, so it’s well worth the watch. There’s some interesting design ideas that Bungie eventually scrapped, like the HUD icons hovering around the weapon, changes from square to circular trackers, and different iconography for letting the player know what was happening at any given moment.
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