One thing that Bungie have been doing with expansions for Destiny has been to take unnamed NPCs, and give them more of a personality, and a backstory, so that they become active participants in the series’ rich story and lore. And that, according to an interview that Bungie’s Scott Taylor, the executive producer for Rise of Iron, is a conscious move on Bungie’s part, and a trend that they plan on continuing in the upcoming Rise of Iron expansion- and beyond.
“That’s been the trend, right? We’ve had Eris that we introduced in Dark Below. We’ve learned a lot about her. We fleshed that out further in The Taken King. Petra, who was introduced in a Tower event called Queen’s Wrath in Destiny, then we evolved her story to move to the Reef and talk about the Queen and the Fallen and the history of those things, along with Variks, our first combatant vendor, we learned about him. And then Cayde-6. You finally know who he is now,” Taylor said.
“The fun thing about that is, in Destiny — you can think of these characters as wallpaper or background detail, but I think of them as opportunities for us to dive into. Saladin’s been in the game since the beta, doing Iron Banner, the ritual of Iron Banner in the Tower. You’ve seen this guy whether or not you play PvP. You can run back and go, what’s up with this gong that’s on fire, that looks cool.
“Now, when we came up with this expansion, we decided to take that character that we don’t know much about, this ritual we don’t know much about — we know some of these cool names and these weapons and things, this armor that looks great. Why don’t we find out why he’s doing this and tell that story?”
Speaking specifically about characters like Xur and the Cryptarch, Taylor added that players may see those characters being explored in depth in the upcoming Rise of Iron.
“We’re trying to create these opportunities, and then the expansions are a great place to dive in,” Taylor said. “You see Cayde and you smile now because you know who Cayde is. I feel like I have a good sense of who Eris is. After this release you’ll know about Saladin, and we’re introducing more characters in the new social space that we hope people are curious about too.”
This is definitely something that will make Destiny players happy- especially those invested in the lore. Destiny: Rise of Iron is due out on the PS4 and Xbox One later this year.
