As with Sector 618, I built most of initial blockout in Max instead of my usual habit of kitbashing terrain and existing meshes. I took thematic inspiration from the Vex Citadel high above Venus (similarly, the spire visible in the skybox of Thieves' Den), but wanted to transplant it to the sky over Mercury, a destination we hadn't utilized much for the Crucible.

My initial layout shared some DNA with ideas I had used in You'll Shoot Your Eye Out, finally coming full circle on the (coincidental) similarities between the disintegrating concrete cubes and Vex architecture. This inspiration included a pair of zig-zagging jump routes from the center lane up to the outer "B" path, and a particular death-defying set of jumps at the bottom of the level connecting A and C. Over time, however, the layout converged into a more conservative three-lane layout.

As the layout began to settle, partner-in-crime Adam Williams suggested the one-way teleporter platform to create a new axis through the map. This route added significant value to holding the B flag in Control and allowed teams to quickly react to players attempting to contest zones A or C. Plus, the glowing circular portal made for an excellent landmark on the outer edge of the map.

The interior of the Cosmodrome wall is an iconic setting to open the Destiny franchise. With an eye toward its towering scale and the massive red pillars buttressing the angled interior wall, I immediately filed this architectural palette under, "I'm gonna build a Crucible map here someday." Guardians—as they say—make their own fate, and I took matters into my own hands for The Taken King.

Unlike the more traditional archetypes in Thieves' Den and Vertigo, I took a more novelty-focused approach with this space. I didn't just want to pass through this space inside the wall; I wanted to turn it into a playground. I started with a two-bridge layout crossing the central chasm, and began expanding interior into the forgoing more traditional lanes and symmetry to focus its fight across and between two bridges in the central chasm, one low and one high. The layout takes on a somewhat square shape, with spawn points placed alongside the A and C flags at opposite corners at the "top" side of the map, with the B flag centered on the lower bridge.

Beyond the primary routes connecting the two bridges, I placed a pair of jump routes on either side of the interior of the chasm, and spent hours tweaking the height and distance against the base Hunter double-jump to get as fluid a route as possible in each direction. In the end, we added a bit more blocking cover to these routes, which sacrificed some fluidity of motion in service of both better protecting/rewarding flankers for using those routes, and preventing players from posting up on the ledges and adding too much noise to the bridge battles.

"What if Quake, but Destiny?"- Me

By the time I started building The Timekeeper, I had been building nothing but terrain-based vehicle maps for the better part of 4 years: first for Starhawk, followed by Destiny's then-largest maps in Bastion and First Light, I figured it was only fair that my next map be Destiny's smallest.

Out of the gate I wanted to get some classic sweeping deathmatch loops like you might find around the perimeter of Quake III's Campgrounds, and applied this to an idea of an over/under figure-8 type shape. This grew into the part of the "basement" of the map and its open drop-down, giving players several routing options through the center of the map.

Another idea that seeded this level was "Vex Crop Circles." These circles, while somewhat softened over time and iteration, provided the anchors and flow lines of the initial figure 8 I started with. You can still see the circular forms in the "interior" rock overhangs, under the animated funky Vex machine thing—whose pulsing VFX I parsed as "clock," hence: "Timekeeper"—and the outside pool area.

I started building the blockout for Thieves' Den along the tail end of work on The Timekeeper, inspired by some of the Vex-inhabited caves of Venus from the Destiny campaign. As with most maps, I had an "anchor" idea where I liked the idea of turning a docked Skiff into the centerpiece of a combat area, and then wanted to run with the volcanic sulphur cave vibes of the Venus natural palette.

While sculpting the terrain was easy enough, the Venus rock meshes proved a bit more complicated to build interior/cave-y sections than their Mars palette counterparts, so I ran into some hiccups trying to bridge exteriors to interiors within the natural palette. My first draft of trying to anchor the docked Skiff to the outer edge of the level also didn't really do what I wanted - I was trying to recreate the shape of the skiff in rocks and terrain on the interior spawn point/capture zone space, and in the end shifted it to the center. But, if you look really close you can still see some of the forms the original Skiff scaffolding I built reflected in the exterior terrain.

Bastion was the first level I built at Bungie, and begain with a whiteboard list of assorted map palette and theme ideas as we worked to figure out our launch offering. My experience on Starhawk made a vehicle-focused map a natural fit, and I took the "Mars Battle" concept of a Vex structure that had been attacked by Cabal forces.

The map began with the dividing wall structure, intended to be the outer fortification of a deeper Vex structure. The "main entrance" was a narrow vertical gap between two sections of wall, with a wider circular entry point at the base. This served as the primary vehicular route between the "interior" and exterior of the map, with a secondary route ramping up and to the left into the natural terrain.

Running perpendicular inside this gap is an elevated route that allows players to run—mostly—protected from the exterior spawn point into the B flag zone, jumping across the vehicle path to get there. I called this the "Enemy at the Gates" jump, for those familiar with the film, as I was very intentionally serving players up on a platter to snipers and the occasional Interceptor cannon volley.

I really wanted to build a map on the Moon.

For this layout, I wanted to create strong central flow lines for players on foot that not only crossed over vehicle lanes—as with Bastion—but also ran alongside them. The geographical theme of the Hive bursting forth from the moon and fracturing its crust gave me the idea of using cracks in the rock as slot canyons to create interplay between players and vehicles along the main thoroughfares. Players would them migrate upward to the central structures built for tighter combat between buildings, while vehicles would dip through tunnels and caves and circle the central dome.

Assignments change, though, and Mick Buckmiller ended up taking point on this map and shuffling much of my unfinished first draft layout, migrating the tall wedge structures to line up "vertically" with the central dome, and flattening out much of the terrain. But, the central dome structure and the terrain loop around it remained from my starting draft, as did some open terrain with scattered rocket parts around the perimeter of the map.