Destiny 2 - Timeline

Overview The timeline was an interesting feature. For a long time it was the home of the game credits section, but it also offered insight to the entire history of Destiny 2 and all of the expansions. It was important in that older content that was archived ("Vaulted"), was able to be seen in a linear fashion. It was also a place to view where we are now and what is coming next. Over time the "nodes" got more complex with animations and full screen visual backdrops. As the game progressed past the expect final expansion, "The Final Shape", it became necessary to refactor the feature and add additional sustainability. User Problem - I want to understand the historical progression of Destiny 2. - I want to see what expansions I own in within the release structure. - I want to understand where I/We are in the games progression. - I want to be able to revisit/replay past parts of the game. - I want a glimpse of what comes next. Success Criteria - For the post Final Shape era and eventual end of support, we had to polish up and seal the timeline. - During this period of Timeline updates, over a year, we quickly realized that the system was not easy to expand so we needed to refactor the timeline nodes and the functionality of the background display to be more expandable and smooth. - Remove tech debt and increase screen performance. Constraints / Complexity - Like many features of a game with this age, there were layers of tech debt and lack of optimization. - We were not sure how many additional releases there would be. - Most of the nodes were designed in a very bespoke manner and required unification. My Role - With the assistance of investment design, I devised a plan to refactor the nodes and documented a future set of goals to refactor the entire system to permit all future work to be done dynamically instead of manually. - Added the required components to support the remaining releases. What I Delivered - In the end we were able to support the remaining nodes. - Removed old "heavy" animated backgrounds for the nodes. - Refactored node and sub-node displays. - Modified the data layout to show backgrounds for all expansions and not just the current. - Increased the fidelity of the full screen background displays. Key Decisions - While it was treated as an afterthought, the timeline would become an important feature over the last year of Destiny 2 support. It would be the record of nearly 10 years of updates. It was determined that it needed more love as a result. - Removing expensive and ultimately unnecessary animations improved loading and readability. - Refactoring, cleaning up and streamlining the nodes was a big step towards a dynamic system that was not realized before the end of service. Outcome / Impact - The final release is a clean, streamlined and beautiful representation of the history of Destiny 2. Skills / Tools - I was able to focus primarily on the tech design on this one. A lot of refactoring, and cleanup. Replacing old nodes with the new version as a template vs. a copy paste, made it much more flexible and looks more uniform on screen. - I did collaborate heavily with investment design as to how we move forward. - I wore my UX hat on this as it was an upkeep feature and did not have a designer assigned to it.