Destiny had a garbage story. Destiny’s follow-up content material principally improved on it. Destiny 2 has a great probability of doing even higher. Let’s focus on.
Destiny 2 is on its method and there’s been a number of discuss how its story gained’t suck – versus the story within the authentic Destiny, which actually did suck. In this three half sequence, we’ll have a look again over why Destiny’s story fell so flat, how Bungie improved on it through the years, and why Destiny 2 may not be utter bollocks.
Destiny’s marketing campaign isn’t a great story: no one is ever given a cause to care, the antagonist is a actually faceless faction and all the most effective stuff is within the Grimoire.
While there’s by no means been official affirmation, it appears fairly clear that a main upset at Bungie noticed Destiny’s story overhauled comparatively near its September 2014 launch; Kotaku‘s report only lent credibility to the rumours and the evidence of our own eyes. The result of this last minute change was not successful: Destiny’s story is forgettable, and filled with free threads that both decide up in Grimoire playing cards or by no means decide up in any respect.
Destiny’s story is designed to take you on a tour of the 4 primary playspaces (extra correctly “destinations”, and I’m nonetheless mad about that) and introduce you to the 4 enemy factions. Well, maybe “designed” is being too beneficiant – I think that the locations and problem development had been in place, after which somebody had the thankless activity of attempting (and failing) to hyperlink it altogether in a significant method (whereas staying in-line with no matter new strictures had abruptly been handed down about the way it ought to and shouldn’t go).
It’s the best way most huge funds video games had been made, earlier than narrative turned a promoting level; degree and mission designers do what the hell they need with fireplace and ice ranges, after which somebody comes alongside within the final six months and desperately hammers nails into it within the hopes it hangs collectively. It didn’t work.
The rapid-fire tour of the 4 enemy races does nothing to make them compelling, with all that materials locked away within the Grimoire as an alternative. The introduction to the Traveller, the Light and what it means to be a Guardian is rushed and incomplete. We’re supposed to purchase into an unsophisticated good versus evil binary, which is an enormous ask when nuance and ambiguity has been the norm in online game storytelling for years and years. It wasn’t profitable, both; most gamers aren’t even conscious that the Light and the Darkness exist, and people which are principally sat round speaking about how any minute we’d discover out the Traveller was truly evil and scrabbling on the slightest clue to again up this way more compelling situation.
For those that understandably can’t bear in mind it in any respect, the naked bones of Destiny’s story are this: participant is resurrected as a Guardian, and Bungie undersells how cool that is and what it means. The participant is distributed on a mission to seek out out what the Fallen are as much as, and discovers some form of bizarre sign associated to the Warmind Rasputin whereas they’re shutting the Fallen’s plans down utterly. However, the participant additionally discovers the Hive have returned to Earth, which is a extra speedy drawback, in order that they go to the moon to offer the Hive a walloping.
Excited for Destiny 2?
Check in with our Destiny 2 guide for every thing you could possibly want on Bungie’s subsequent huge factor.
On the moon, the participant meets the mysterious Exo Stranger, who tells them to come back to Venus in the event that they assume they’re laborious sufficient. Being greater than laborious sufficient, the participant finishes walloping the Hive, then goes to Venus, the place they uncover the Vex. The Vex are the large unhealthy of vanilla Destiny, and Bungie as soon as once more utterly fails to speak this.
By fussing round on Venus and walloping every thing they see, the participant discovers the Vex are as much as one thing nefarious to do with the Black Garden. Making a cut price with the Awoken, whom Bungie completely don’t clarify in any method in-game, the participant learns that the doorway to the Black Garden is on Mars. The Cabal are additionally on Mars, and the participant provides them just a little little bit of a walloping, just about simply because they’re there. No actual justification is given for it and it has no ramifications for the plot; the Cabal are simply in the best way and had to slot in right here someplace.
The participant then enters the Black Garden and shuts down the Vex’s plan in a boss battle, which might be climactic if we’d been given any cause to care about and even bear in mind the Vex exterior the Grimoire playing cards. Everyone rejoices, and the marketing campaign ends with the Exo Stranger turning as much as say nicely carried out you and offer you a garbage gun, and likewise to convey completely zero details about who she is and who she works for. Then she vanishes ceaselessly.
But wait, there’s extra! The story of vanilla Destiny doesn’t truly finish till the participant and their fireteam overcome the Vault of Glass, the primary raid. Unfortunately, hardly anyone realises this in any respect, as a result of most gamers don’t know that the Vex are the antagonists of vanilla Destiny or what they’re as much as; as a result of the story of the Vault of Glass is completely informed in Grimoire playing cards and tools descriptions; and since the raid is inaccessible to informal gamers. Hell, previous to The Taken King the raid wasn’t acknowledged in-game in any respect; NPCs didn’t point out it, and no quest markers led you to it. It was only a map icon.
In brief, vanilla Destiny’s marketing campaign isn’t a great story: bits of it don’t contribute something to the general plot, most of it’s poorly communicated, no one is ever given a cause to care, the antagonist is a actually faceless faction, you’re by no means even proven that the final mission is related to the story and all the most effective stuff is within the Grimoire (the Vex are literally terrific villains, although Destiny does its greatest by no means to let you know that).
The universe of Destiny, and even the vanilla story, has nice potential that simply isn’t allowed to shine.
This is an actual disgrace as a result of the universe of Destiny, and even the vanilla story, has nice potential that simply isn’t allowed to shine. Why this occurred is a little bit of thriller: Bungie does know easy methods to make good story missions, and we even see hints of that within the vanilla marketing campaign, as with the creeping shadows of the Fallen within the tutorial mission, and the tense horror of discovering the Hive. We can solely assume that story overhaul simply got here too late for the staff to do something first rate with it, and it’s been too flat out since then.
For essentially the most half, Destiny gamers don’t know or care concerning the story and setting. Part of that’s simply gaming; for every of us who dives into that stuff headfirst, there are dozens extra hammering the skip button on each cinematic and never giving two hoots who they’re capturing and why. Fair sufficient, too – horses for programs – and positively Destiny was a roaring success whilst its narratives vastly undersold its fascinating lore.
The lore actually is fascinating, however you must need to get at it, as a result of it’s principally conveyed within the Grimoire, and in tools descriptions that don’t make sense till you learn the Grimoire.
The Grimoire is a set of tales and background materials that incorporates among the greatest brief fiction writing ever featured in a online game.
The Grimoire is a set of tales and background materials that incorporates among the greatest brief fiction writing ever featured in a online game, though admittedly it doesn’t have many rivals. It cops a number of flak for not being “in the game” (you must load up the app or Bungie.internet to entry it), and positively it does really feel like Bungie wrote an entire bunch of nice stuff after which needed to shoehorn it in any outdated method it might after the primary narrative was overhauled.
On the opposite hand, would these things truly work in-game? How many gamers truly learn by means of textual content logs? How many even watch cutscenes? Some of the tales within the Grimoire might make wonderful marketing campaign missions, however lots of them wouldn’t; they exist so as to add color to the sport world. By taking them out of the sport, Bungie avoids boring everybody else, and there’s one thing to be stated for mendacity in mattress tapping by means of Grimoire playing cards and piecing collectively tales at a time you haven’t put apart for capturing area faces. (Go seize all these calcified fragments and skim the story of Oryx’s ascent to energy; it’s superb.)
Where the Grimoire actually does fall down is in suggesting the background lore of Destiny is much extra full than it truly is. With all Activision’s discuss of a ten 12 months recreation and an thrilling new universe to dwell in, I had envisioned Bungie sitting down and actually hashing out the entire thing, placing collectively a lore bible, planning out its storytelling for years to come back (versus having an influence level slide saying “one expansion for each type of baddie”), filling in lots of background that may by no means see the sunshine of day, making certain every thing got here collectively and gelled properly and by no means broke its personal guidelines.
Where the Grimoire actually does fall down is in suggesting the background lore of Destiny is much extra full than it truly is.
That’s how the most effective fictional universes are constructed, and The Grimoire seems to be quite a bit just like the form of factor that may occur on account of it. Unfortunately, it actually does appear Destiny was constructed as shooty-shooty-bang-bang first after which had the lore bolted on, similar to most video video games. For instance, we not too long ago realized that Bungie never actually had a plan for the Darkness, the big bad of Destiny, making all these theories constricted from little in-game and Grimoire hints completely pointless.
Bungie is even ret-conning the Darkness; within the first Destiny, the Darkness is a few form of power that follows the Traveller, the mysterious being of Light who granted Guardians their powers, and the 4 enemy races had been “minions of the Darkness”. That’s all gone for Destiny 2; the Hive worship the Darkness, however they’re not themselves the Darkness, and not one of the different races have a relationship with it. So a lot for that.
It’s laborious to take care of funding in a fictional universe when it’s acquired such apparent cracks in it, and we didn’t actually need artistic director Luke Smith’s current affirmation that Bungie has had no idea what it was doing with Destiny’s overall plot; the disconnect between the wealthy lore and tales accessible exterior the sport and the barren wasteland of vanilla Destiny is proof sufficient.
It appears superb that an organization might brazenly plan to construct a “ten year” game, a shared-worlds universe for players to inhabit persistently, and never get its story and lore sorted out beforehand – however then, it’s superb that Destiny launched with none actual ongoing content material or plans to supply it, and that undoubtedly occurred.
Now that we’ve outlined why Destiny’s story sucked the large one, verify again in with The Story of Destiny 2, half 2 as we decide by means of the enhancements Bungie made to its garbage narrative beginnings.
Source
