In Destiny 2 , Bungie will no longer talk about “the Darkness” because none of the developers know what it is supposed to be. The nebulous threat from Destiny 1 plays no role in Destiny 2.
A week ago, an article on the story development in Destiny 2 was published on GameInformer. There, the Game Director of Destiny 2, Luke Smith, said that the story in Destiny 2 would be about what happens when Guardians lose their light.
The elusive threat from Destiny 1, “the Darkness,” will not play a role in Destiny 2.
Ultimately, players are owed an explanation of what “the Darkness” is, but that will not be provided in Destiny 2. They want to move away from as many “extra terms” from Destiny 1 as possible and focus on telling the story around Destiny 2.
C’mon, admit it, you have no idea what the Darkness really is
All of this sounds a bit nebulous. The US site Kotaku has now directly addressed Smith, suggesting that he confess that no one at Bungie knows what is actually meant by Darkness.
Fans deserve something better
Smith admitted: “Yes, quite frankly: We had no idea what the Darkness was actually supposed to be.” For a while, they thought that the Darkness was all four enemy races combined, which is reflected in the tooltips “Minions of the Darkness.”
But that just isn’t what Destiny deserves.
Therefore, Bungie wants to make Destiny 2 a story about “the Light”, what it means to be chosen. For the time being, Bungie wants to move away from the term “Darkness”.
When Bungie talks about the Darkness next time in Destiny, they will know beforehand what the Darkness is. They will have a plan for how to deal with the Darkness.
The Santa Claus Lie
Mein MMO says: For players, it’s a bit like catching Santa Claus red-handed while he’s changing, and it turns out to be Uncle Frank with a silly white beard.
Players easily think that the developers are 100% united on everything and are following a master plan that will become fully clear to us. But that’s not the case. The story in Destiny 1 was chaos. It’s good that they now admit it.
This clear break allows for new narrative possibilities.
We know from Destiny 1, that the four alien races have differences and follow their own motivations. To assume that they would fight for a common cause, the “Darkness”, would be narratively boring and unbelievable. With “Light and Darkness”, Destiny would be a clear “black and white” world, here the good, there the evil – that simply doesn’t fit Destiny.
The version that each of the races wants to bring about humanity’s downfall for different reasons and sees themselves completely justified in doing so is much more exciting.
Better Bane from Batman than “the Darkness”
“The Darkness” seems to be a remnant of the esoteric origin story of Destiny that was discarded early on. It has since been replaced by solid, tangible threats. Thus, the step was probably necessary.
Luke Smith has been responsible for giving Destiny a concrete, tangible story since “The Taken King”, with characters like Cayde-6. In Destiny 2, there will be a tangible threat, with the militarily superior Cabal and their super leader Ghaul, who reminds many of Bane from Batman. There is no longer room for a nebulous darkness.
More interesting information about Destiny 2 can be found here:
