Some thoughts. (Destiny)

by cheapLEY , Wednesday, November 08, 2023, 20:00 (380 days ago) @ cheapLEY

The SPNKR was supposed to be freaking green?! Man, that just seems weird.

I grabbed my copy of the Halo Graphic Novel after Lorraine said she thought her forward was mean. She seems too nice. I get what she means, she was pretty blunt about the bad pitch from the franchise development group. But it didn't strike me as particularly mean, just kinda straight forward. I guess we could have the discussion about the necessity of putting down a bad pitch instead of focusing on how cool this book in my hands is.

And man, is it ever cool. I spent some time flipping through the pages, and I read a few of the stories for first time since I bought it new 17 (!!!) years ago. It's a cool project, and I'm so happy to have it, even if I've only looked at it like three times in nearly twenty years.

It also makes me nostalgic and a little sad. I have no doubt that Bungie is filled with passionate people overflowing with cool ideas they might never get to see realized, but where is that passion as a company? What happened to the Bungie that put together a freaking graphic novel and then pitched it to publishers? Where's the Destiny graphic novel or anime? I don't want to just shit on modern Bungie, lord knows I do that enough. And I know the market conditions have changed from the Halo days (Hell, why put in the effort as a company to put together a graphic novel when you can just keep pumping out $20 skins for so much less effort? That's not a criticism, either, but a genuine rhetorical question from a business standpoint.) I think Bungie made something pretty cool with Destiny, even if I don't really like it anymore, but listening to Lorraine talk about her history and flipping through this graphic novel really drove home how special the Halo era was.

I'm sure there are plenty of folks that had these exact same thoughts about the Marathon era, just as there will be plenty more folks that will look wistfully back at Destiny-era Bungie in ten years.