Nintendo's latest Zelda game Breath of the Wild has garnered deserved praise for presenting users with an immense, emergent open world full of discovery, surprise, and charm. However, as I've been digging deeper into the game, I started to notice some areas that could benefit from a few quick user experience (UX) design improvements to reduce some bad friction and busywork.

Horizon Zero Dawn does a lot of big stuff well. Literal big stuff, like robots the size of buildings. It also nails a lot of small things. Amazing leg animations, sure, but also things that more directly affect how it feels to play the game.

I like plenty of things about Final Fantasy 15, but the map and menus are not among them. This game's interface is a mess of nonsense so carelessly taped together that it defies logic or comprehension.

At the Game Developers Conference in March, Bungie's David Candland gave a really cool talk about the evolution of Destiny's UI. Among other things, he showed a bunch of prototype menu screens, and also explained the complicated process of fine-tuning a video game interface.

Destiny has a hell of a user interface. It's nice to look at, but like many things in Destiny it's also nice to use. Just like any part of any finished video game, it went through a lot of rough drafts to get to where it is now.