Bungie has released a new ViDoc for its upcoming expansion for Destiny 2, Renegades. The video, which you can check out below, includes several members of the game’s development team talking about the various aspects of the upcoming expansion, with a special focus put on what it feels like to take on the challenges of the lawless frontier.
One of the core aspects of Destiny 2: Renegades touched upon in the video is just how much the upcoming expansion feels like it’s right out of Star Wars. Along with the poster and other art work for the title evoking classic Star Wars movie posters, the expansion will also bring with it weaponry inspired by the sci-fi movie franchise, including lightsabres with the ability to throw them and pull them back, just like a Jedi warrior.
The story of Destiny 2: Renegades revolves around the player Guardians infiltrating a criminal underworld in order to save a friend who wasn’t able to escape their past. This friend is also seemingly being kept in a frozen block, once again evoking the Carbonite-based imprisonment faced by Han Solo in Empire Strikes Back. The Star Wars inspirations largely came as a result of a special collaboration between Bungie and LucasFilm Games.
“The folks at LucasFilm were such great collaborators,” said narrative director Alison Lührs in the video. “They understood that, in order for this to work, we had to find where the Venn diagram of art and stories meet. Themes of underdogs rising up against something much larger than themselves, themes of those little places in that Venn diagram were the ones that really helped us find the stories that we want to tell together.”
Design director James Tsai spoke about the intersection of Destiny and Star Wars in the overall sci-fi genre. He also brought up comparisons between the two universes, like Dredgen from Destiny being quite similar to the Sith from Star Wars, as well as how similar the new Cabal faction is to the Empire.
“If you look Star Wars and you look at Destiny, you can kind of see that parallel that exists,” noted Tsai. “For instance, our Dredgen, they’re our Sith. And then you’ve got the Barant Imperium, and they’re very very Empire-like. They have a huge appetite for expansion.”
“I think of the Praxic Order,” continued Lührs. “They’re our Jedi in this release, and they are very focused on order and law, and understanding that there is a binary in our universe of good and evil. We get to poke at that a little bit in a way that suits our story and our world, while still feeling very much like the inspiration that we’re calling from.”
When it comes to gameplay, we also get a look at the sorts of chaos that players can expect when they take on some of the new activities available in the expansion. The video also highlights how fast-paced these new adventures will be, with creative lead Tom Farnsworth noting that players can quickly take on the missions from the Lawless Frontier Holomap, jump in, cause chaos, complete objectives, and leave, or die trying.
Destiny 2: Renegades is slated for release on December 2, and will be coming to PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S. For more details about the current state of the online shooter, check out our review of the previous expansion – Destiny 2: The Edge of Fate.
