the sort of story I wanted... (Destiny)

by Jabberwok, Saturday, September 27, 2014, 18:10 (3951 days ago) @ Cody Miller

From early trailers, they clearly had cut scenes that didn't make it in, that hinted at a very different narrative. I wonder what happened.

I'll say that it's pretty common in open world games these days to have side plots that have no relation to the main story, but are just there to flesh out the world, so that doesn't really surprise me. However the side quests in Destiny don't do a very good job of fleshing things out, because as you said, they don't go anywhere. Much worse, the main story missions have the same problem. Aside from the player, no faction or character really does ANYTHING for the entire game, except give vague directions and unsatisfying explanations.

All of the time and energy that went into the various side missions should have gone into making a good, meaty, lengthy, linear story. They talked about how important Rasputin was, but he is completely irrelevant to the main narrative. It wouldn't have been difficult to tie these things together. Maybe something like this:

More time should have spent on the player escaping the Fallen in the Cosmodrome and finding a warp drive, and in the process, witnessing the Hive's arrival on Earth (with Seeders actually falling from the sky). Upon interfacing with Rasputin, we find out directly from him (and not a random voiceover) that The Hive are resurrecting the Sword of Crota and preparing an invasion on the Moon. With the ship fixed up, we go to the Tower for the first time. The Speaker sends us to the Moon to steal the sword and throw a wrench in their invasion (most of the existing missions could have been worked into this, in an order that made sense, and distinct levels that progressed instead of one static area). And since I can't think of anything better, the Stranger tells us to meet her on Venus, to encounter the Vex. The Queen's brother is there, and when pressed, tells us we need a Gatelord's eye to have any hope of entering the Black Garden. After we get one, he takes us to see the Queen of the Reef, who can charge the eye with stolen Vex technology, in exchange for a future favor. Then we head to Mars, which the Vex have been laying dormant on for a while, but now The Cabal are invading for unknown reasons, so we have to fight both. And the rest is history.

This is off of the top of my head, and not even that different from what actually happens, but I already like it better. They needed dedicated story mission areas for each location, and more cinematics, in the Bungie tradition, to tie it all together into something that feels like stuff is happening. The Hive really are invading Earth, not just spawning repeatedly in caves. You really stop this by going to the Moon. The Queen's brother does more than stand around and act like a jackhole. The Cabal are actually invading Mars en masse. This is the sort of dynamism that was present in every Halo game, and it's why I think they need to keep the story more separate from the sandbox in the future. The sandbox has great potential, but it shouldn't be stepping on the campaign's toes, and vice versa.


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