One of the criticisms that critics of Destiny have often levelled at the games is how Bungie’s storytelling game seems to have gone down a notch since the Halo days. With the upcoming Destiny 2 expansion, Forsaken, Bungie are looking to change and improve a number of things, and among these things is an improvement in storytelling.
A large part of that is going to be deeper and richer lore, which Bungie’s Scott Taylor spoke about in great detail with Games Radar at Gamescom. Collecting lore and background info throughout the expansion is going to be a major storytelling device in Forsaken, and notably enough, one of the ways for doing so is going to be collecting dead ghosts- cause for excitement for every Destiny fan, I’m sure.
“The system that we have where you collect lore, the way that walks and feels right now is like opening up a little book and reading the stories,” Taylor said. “There are short stories and long stories that you discover in the world and then open up in the game that you can go collect by killing bosses, finding items in the world like dead ghosts, and little drones that tell little stories that are either one part or maybe three. Or maybe you can find out what Uldren was doing between Taken King and how he ended up in that prison. Those things are all in the game and they are very addictive.”
“It has the aesthetics of a book, and you can open it up in the game and it’ll tell you a story about each of the Barren before you go kill them, and why they were in the prison, and what happened to them,” he continued. “There’s a novel’s worth of stuff in the game.”
A renewed focus on story and storytelling definitely seems to be on top of Bungie’s list – or very close to the top, at any rate – with Forsaken. The very setup of the death of Cayde-6 should clue you into that. More details on the game’s narrative, among other things, were also recently leaked, and if you’re not concerned about spoilers, you can read more on that through here.
Destiny 2: Forsaken launches on September 4 for PS4, Xbox One, and PC. Its first raid will be going live on September 14, while players will also have the opportunity to try out its PvPvE mode, Gambit, for free on September 1 for 24 hours.