Destiny had a tough begin, narratively, and Bungie spent three years attempting to show it round. Did it succeed, and what does it imply for Destiny 2?
Destiny 2 has an uphill battle to rescue the franchise from its reputation for rubbish storytelling, which the first Destiny certainly deserved. In the second episode of a three-part collection, we’ll check out what Bungie realized between Destiny and Destiny 2.
Right off the bat, Bungie started to revise its storytelling strategies in response to participant criticism.
Although it instantly grew to become obvious that Bungie’s old style release-game-release-DLC mindset was not going to fulfill participant’s starvation for brand new content material, it lingered on for a yr; it takes an extended, very long time to show a ship that large round. Significant turnover in Bungie workers over the previous few years are suggestive of a torturous technique of reorganisation, as outdated methods of doing issues are prised out of demise grips together with out of date growth pipeline tech and different relics of a world earlier than stay video games as service.
Let’s not be too harsh right here: Destiny was the primary try and make this type of recreation for consoles. Bungie wasn’t the one studio to underestimate the difficulties, and as soon as it understood the state of affairs, it took steps to alter issues. The similar is true of its narrative method: proper off the bat, the studio started to revise its storytelling methods in response to player criticism.
Although we needed to watch for The Taken King a complete yr later earlier than Bungie began to type out its content material supply, the primary DLC pack confirmed Bungie already adjusting to this courageous new world the place gamers wished to have any form of thought what was occurring. Arriving only a few months after Destiny’s 2014 launch, The Dark Below’s marketing campaign is way simpler to observe, for these so inclined, and ties neatly into the raid reasonably than assuming gamers will by some means magically be a part of the dots themselves.
As nicely as smoothing the journey, Bungie made a few key adjustments with The Dark Below’s marketing campaign that made its narrative extra palatable. NPC Eris Morn is our information, giving us a recognisable human ingredient all through. A give attention to one enemy faction and a named antagonist – Crota – additionally makes it simpler to maintain observe of issues. For lore hounds there’s an excessive amount of Hive nerdery to unpack, particularly close to the raid, and a few of it’s even within the recreation reasonably than the Grimoire playing cards.
House of Wolves took it a bit additional when it turned up just a few months later. Once once more we have now particular NPC faces to information us by means of the marketing campaign – Petra Venj and Variks – and a single antagonist – Skolas. Like Crota, Skolas is the final word problem of the DLC in his wonderful Prison of Elders encounter, however he additionally seems a number of occasions all through the story missions and because the remaining boss of the marketing campaign, so everybody is aware of who he’s and will get the prospect to beat him down even when they tune out all of the briefings.
Following on the anniversary of Destiny’s launch, The Taken King is its first actual enlargement, and maybe higher described as a relaunch; it goes again and makes adjustments to the vanilla story presentation, hanging it collectively in threaded quests, in an try to speak the story higher and lead gamers by means of all out there content material. It type of works, however not completely; the world state of Destiny moved on far sufficient that the entire thing makes even much less sense than beforehand, and no quantity of mission notifications could make the story cohesive and satisfying.
By the time you get to the tip of The Taken King, simply sufficient concerning the mystical Hive woo-woo that it appears acceptable that you just now have to go on a raid to essentially homicide Oryx.
More efficiently, new content material in The Taken King attracts on classes realized and offers us extra of what labored in Destiny and its DLC. NPCs drive the story – notably the much-loved Cayde-6 and good outdated Eris, however with appearances from Zavala and Ikora – and whereas we don’t ever see any of them in-game and even doing a lot in cut-scenes, radio chatter peppered liberally all through grants them way more persona than the loading display briefings ever did.
Like Skolas, antagonist Oryx may be very a lot current; whereas the king doesn’t descend to battle the participant face-to-face, his “echoes” do. He seems within the opening cutscene to kick issues off, and NPCs by no means allow you to neglect that your purpose is to take him down. By the time you get to the tip of the story marketing campaign and at last pop him a superb ‘un, simply sufficient concerning the mystical Hive woo-woo that it appears acceptable that you just now have to go on a raid to actually homicide him. Other endgame missions like Strikes are positioned in context; lieutenants of Oryx have to be prevented from claiming his throne, and the Cabal presence on Oryx’s Dreadnaught have to be saved beneath management. (Keep that final bit in thoughts for tomorrow, will you?)
Bungie crammed out Destiny Year 2 with a stay service reasonably than large content material drops, however we kicked off Year three with Rise of Iron, the enlargement everyone knows is a little bit of filler so most of Bungie may get in one other yr of shoring up its tech prepared for Destiny 2.
It wasn’t a roaring success, narratively; the workforce liable for The Taken King had moved on, and you’ll see that almost all clearly in the way in which the story takes a step backwards. The NPCs despatched to information us are largely nobodies. SIVA, the “antagonist” of Rise of Iron, isn’t a persona you possibly can like to hate; it’s only a factor. The remaining boss is one thing you’ve gotten by no means seen earlier than. The raid boss can also be one thing you’ve by no means even heard of earlier than.
Rise of Iron additionally proves that the unique Destiny received one thing proper, although. Bringing the tales of the Iron Lords out into the sunshine simply confirmed what a good suggestion it was to maintain them locked away at the hours of darkness. It seems that in case you don’t have a extremely stable narrative sorted out behind your teasing hints, then a bunch of mysterious hints and teases are far more fascinating than an inverse picture reconstructed from those self same snippets.
The Iron Lords are one-dimensional; the way in which Rise of Iron presents them, they sprang into existence and have been murdered by SIVA and that’s just about it. There’s no depth to them and so they don’t come throughout as actual folks. After the preliminary pleasure of seeing open references to names hidden away within the lore, it’s exhausting to care concerning the Iron Lords, and that’s a disappointing repay to years of teasing hints. The pathos of lonely Saladin, the final of the Iron Lords, is undercut sharply by the revelation that the remainder of them weren’t that fascinating, by your speedy and underwhelming promotion to the ranks of the Iron Lords, and in addition by the truth that one other one among them survived and no one actually remarks on this truth.
Efrideet, the shock surviving Iron Lord, is among the most fascinating bits of Rise of Iron, as a result of there’s a suggestion that she disagrees with the struggle on the – nicely, we’d say the Darkness, however as mentioned yesterday that’s been ret-conned. Throwaway traces about bug-lovers counsel she could also be a buddy to the Fallen, one thing we’ve all the time recognized is feasible, and that sympathy for the Fallen is extra widespread than beforehand believed. This is promising; it was our first in-game trace that the entire Darkness versus Light battle may exit the window, and there are a great deal of good tales to inform when cultures are in battle.
It didn’t go wherever, although, and that’s one among Destiny’s largest issues: the extra fascinating stuff by no means goes wherever. The Exo Stranger ends vanilla Destiny’s marketing campaign and it looks like a touch that the true story is simply across the nook – and naturally it wasn’t, with all additional releases exploring different tales. The Taken King ends with Eris Morn getting much more delightfully spooky than ever – which is straight away forgotten. There’s a suggestion that the Queen of the Awoken continues to be alive – nevertheless it by no means pays off. Rise of Iron was closely promoted with hints at extra data on Rasputin, the Warmind whose story felt just like the core of the sport method again within the Fallen chapters of vanilla Destiny, and who resurfaced within the Cabal chapter – however nothing got here of it in Rise of Iron.
More on Destiny 2
If you’re too impatient to attend for tomorrow’s conclusions, verify in with our Destiny 2 guide for loads of story and setting dialogue.
This is immensely irritating for these gamers who present keen and have interaction with Destiny’s lore. All the massive occasions in vanilla Destiny and its expansions observe the identical fundamental sample – menace rises, menace is put down – and little or no of curiosity occurs to anyone alongside the way in which. Characters don’t develop, change and be taught. The world state by no means actually feels threatened, and isn’t altered by the participant’s actions (though to be honest in a MMO or shared-worlds recreation that’s fairly troublesome to do outdoors of main content material releases).
Although Destiny’s DLC and expansions largely shored up its story with memorable characters, clearer storylines and first rate antagonists, it by no means managed to beat the dearth of stable background lore and unified plan for the long run. As a consequence, we’re continuously teased with solutions to the sport’s large mysteries, to main plot developments and revelations, and the teases by no means repay. That mentioned: given how unsuccessfully Rise of Iron delivered on Destiny’s mysteries, maybe it’s a superb factor Bungie hasn’t tried to make good on its implicit narrative guarantees extra usually.
Check again in with The Story of Destiny 2, half three as we take a look at how classes realized are already in proof in Bungie subsequent’s large factor.
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