For nearly half a 12 months, elements of Destiny 2‘s world have been trapped in a time loop, our actions and adventures having no real impact as the same events unfold every time the three-week cycle starts over. While rotating quests is standard for many MMOs, and indeed Destiny 2, the curse cycle of the Dreaming City is actually a story quietly unfolding. You may have missed this if you don’t play frequently and hearken to all the search dialogue, however everybody there is aware of we’re trapped in a Groundhog Threeweeks loop and it’s getting grim. Change could also be coming.
A short recap for non-Destineers. In Destiny, elf-ish spacehumans named the Awoken stay within the Dreaming City, a paradise of gardens, crystals, and waterfalls constructed upon an asteroid. We go to in Destiny 2’s Forsaken growth and, after gamers first beat its raid by smashing a want dragon possessed by a darkish god (video games, eh?), a curse trapped the town in a loop. Now the curse ebbs and flows throughout a three-week cycle, the air rising heavy with flecks and orbs of elder awfulness, and all kinds of nasties from distant stars and deep planes swarm the Dreaming City.
Each week, the curse shifts and some completely different quests and actions rotate in, all repeating on a three-week cycle. And everybody within the Dreaming City is aware of time is repeating, remembering every thing that’s occurred since September however unable to vary their actions in the event that they keep within the metropolis. Every three weeks, the identical house elf will get injured defended artefacts. The similar monastery is assault by the identical baddies. And so on and spherical and spherical we go, some indicators of hope coming throughout cycles, some individuals escaping it by leaving, and everybody else settling in for the lengthy haul as a result of the implications if we don’t might be worse. That’s been enjoyable.
While we repeat the identical quests and wider occasions slowly progress, we’re additionally attending to know characters higher, with new dialogue once we see questgivers once more. My favorite is Amrita, an area elf wounded each three weeks whereas defending valuable artefacts. Over time she’s received chattier, revealing extra concerning the gadgets we’re recovering in addition to herself, then settling right into a type of grim humour.
“It’s embarrassing, really,” she started throughout the newest cycle. “‘Help, help, the Hive are stealing our hard drives.’ ‘Uhh, they shot me uhh oh no.’ I’m a good shot actually. A good fighter. I didn’t think this is how history would remember me.”
This week, one other warrior is saying she has “lucked out” as a result of her place within the cycle is on scouting obligation safely atop a cliff. “I get to come up here every three weeks and just… hang out.”
(Reddit consumer “dobby_rams” has been collating the 21 weeks of curse dialogue so far, in the event you’re curious. Much might be odd in the event you don’t know the game however y’know you get the image.)
Our wee Ghost robopal getting more and more riled by the obvious indifference of Mara Sov, the Dreaming City queen who’s seemingly sitting this out far-off, has been good too.
This week looks like it might be be the beginning of huge occasions with the cycle. Mara Sov has left, saying she’s off on necessary enterprise and could also be a while. Because Bungie can’t do something necessary within the open, that is in a one-off scene which solely seems to individuals who full a particular quest this one week. Mara even dropped a reference to a cryptic unnamed character from the primary Destiny (and by no means seen since) who spoke the clunking line “I don’t even have time to explain why I don’t have time to explain.” Mara echoing that enigma certain is a few traditional Destiny. I’ll not even get into the large twist round her brother, Forsaken antagonist Uldren Sov, in an earlier one-off cinematic. But whether or not Mara leaving adjustments something or not, I’m unreasonably happy with this entire curse setup.
While rotating quests is a reasonably customary solution to maintain a web-based game recent, it’s not often meant to be an precise story. This is surprising even inside Destiny 2, the place elsewhere we are able to idly stroll by way of the battlefields of wars which nonetheless rage regardless of the very fact we received years in the past, the place many characters briefly recognise grand plot strains we concluded then proceed to behave like nothing occurred, and the place the identical individuals die the identical deaths as a result of we replay the identical missions.
God, this game has such unusual storytelling. Destiny 2’s unique story marketing campaign is little greater than an apart throughout the wider plot, a sequence of occasions that weren’t that attention-grabbing or thrilling with forgettable characters and largely ending in a return to the established order. I do like games which inform tales inside worlds relatively than specializing in erecting intricate millennia-long plots the place every thing ties into every thing else, however that’s not what Bungie are as much as.
Across minor mentions in side-missions, NPC chatter, and squillions of textual content lorelogs, they’re clearly constructing an extended arc of dire occasions. But they cover all of the portents and explanations, as a substitute typically utilizing the foreground to inform bland tales. Destiny is meaningless in the event you don’t hunt out and observe these quiet elements. And a few of their concepts are actually attention-grabbing! What is that this. Why. Why do they do it this manner.
They’re nonetheless doing it this manner. This week’s new quest to nab a honking great revolver, The Last Word, is the lead-in to the following season of Destiny 2: Forsaken’s paid annual move. It’s a turning level in a narrative with an enigmatic character tinkering with darkish forces to an unknown finish, although except you’ve delved deep you’d not know this and see the Drifter solely because the announcer of a multiplayer mode. Quite a lot of that story can also be in lorelogs, and this new quest builds on one other began by a uncommon loot drop many gamers nonetheless haven’t even discovered. And who’s studying all of the descriptions when attempting to grind by way of the various grindy phases of a grinding quest? Then the search climaxes in a storyless story mission which, whereas kinda cute, tells no story.
I imply, I’m pleased sufficient simply taking pictures faces within the hope of discovering higher weapons to shoot faces higher, nevertheless it’s maddening that the game foregrounds so many uninteresting tales whereas hiding great things in quiet quests and lorelogs.
