I love and hate the book (Destiny)

by Cody Miller , Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Tuesday, March 10, 2015, 16:59 (3545 days ago) @ Leviathan
edited by Cody Miller, Tuesday, March 10, 2015, 17:04

In terms of visuals, Destiny fully lived up to its promise in my opinion. I transition from the environments and UI of the game to the art and presentation of this book seamlessly.

I fully understand the nature of concept art, and do not think at all that if it was merely conceptualized it would be in the game. But right on the first few pages, you have stuff Bungie actually talked about being in the game, like the city and Charlemagne's Vault. The entirety of page 13 portrays things Bungie hyped up, but were absent. The Citadel is featured prominently, but we never go there even though it exists in game. You have the fallen and the fallen walker patrolling a snowy area. You have a hive ship around Saturn (Saturn again!). I get that stuff gets cut on every project, but…

It's all about that damn concept art leak back in 2012. Maybe it's my fault, but when you have all these images of bases on Jupiter, Saturn, the Reef, and tons of other locations on Earth, and Bungie keeps selling the idea that Destiny is this huge romp through the solar system, I was naturally let down when I found out that it wasn't. I distinctly remember the dread I felt about the game when Deej confirmed one playable area per planet. I was not alone. Why would people be shocked at that? Because that news flew in the face of everything Bungie seemed to be presenting at the time. I was told the Alpha was <5% of the game. It was actually 20%. Then you look at all the filler missions, and wonder why those weren't somewhere else, on another planet forwarding a grand story.

If that concept art leak never happened, and if all of the art leaked were in the book (much of it is not by the way), then I wouldn't have a problem with it at all. I don't know, I just think that Bungie spun this grand vision of the game that was fueled by the leaks, and didn't offer a realistic portrayal of the game. Then the game ships and you see the narrative is shit. This is especially true when you hear rumors of a rebuild of the content in fall of 2013, and internal strife over whether the game should have been an RPG or an MMO. Something happened, whether big or small, just going by the info in the 2013 ViDocs that is no longer relevant.

All of that may be completely false, but I am human, and I have an imagination. I LOVE the world Bungie created for Destiny, and unfortunately my mind carried me further inside the world than I could actually go. That's just a product of how much I wanted to be there I guess. Part of me thinks these rumors are rumors precisely because someone needed to rationalize why what we thought we'd get wasn't what we got.