In the MMO shooter Destiny , there are now anonymous sources allegedly from the developers. They explain why the first story was so weak.
The website Kotaku claims to have spoken to 6 employees from Bungie, who wish to remain anonymous. Their statements explain why the story at release was so strangely weak.
The original story did not please the bosses, was too linear, was discarded
According to reports, Joe Staten, the “main writer”, and his team presented the entire story, cutscenes, and what they had up to that point in a two-hour “supercut” to the senior designers at Bungie in the summer of 2013. They simply did not like what they saw: too cheesy, too linear. And said: “Everything needs to go, we are starting over.”
While they kept the mythology, the alien races, and the Traveler, they decided to completely retell the “plot,” the framework of the story.
There are various statements regarding the story up to that point. One source says it was “confusing, esoteric nonsense,” another source mentions it contained “strong material.” Only the supercut did not account for that. Others state that the story by then had been changed so many times that it seemed like Frankenstein’s monster pieced together.
The important people at Bungie found the original story far too “linear.” During the first few missions, Guardians would have seen all the planets. This did not align with their visions. They parted ways with Staten under “not exactly friendly” circumstances and took matters into their own hands.
Osiris, the Stranger, and the Queen’s Brother
What happened next is unusual: They took the parts for which they had spent millions and reassembled them under time pressure without the support of the original writers. They combined two completely different missions into one. They made use of existing cutscenes and character models.
In doing so, they excluded or repurposed some of the characters.
- Osiris was originally intended to be a kind of “Obi Wan” mentor who would guide players on their journey, but was discarded – is currently only seen as “Trials of Osiris” in the game
- Osiris had an assistant, whose appearance was modeled into the “Stranger“
- Crow played a similar role as Cayde-6 as a daredevil who would lead the player to Osiris; this character was cut and the model was used as the brother of the Awakened Queen
- Rasputin had a larger role in the origin, appearing as an “Exo” that you had to save from the Hive, who had abducted him onto their coffin ship. Later it was revealed that the character was only a “puppet” for the Warmind
- Charlemagne (Charles the Great) another Warmind was completely discarded
Original authors were considered “outcasts”
This “redesign” of the existing parts into a new story was carried out by a small team with people like Luke Smith and Chris Barett, who last year received important roles in the development of the DLCs. This all occurred under time pressure, as the game had already been postponed twice.
The authors they had until then gradually left the studio. One source says they were considered “outcasts.” They rewrote the story without the authors.
While they were hastily reassembling the story without authors, they still thought that Destiny should be released in March 2014. When they achieved a delay to September 2014, they used the additional time and invested it in the gameplay of the game, not in the story.
The original story, before all these changes, was supposed to have a much stronger focus on the narrative. It would have had many more cutscenes at the beginning and end of each mission.
Mein MMO believes: The insiders tell a story that seamlessly fits the puzzle we know so far. The separation from Staten has been known for a long time, and the two delays have recently been officially confirmed. And in interviews, Luke Smith admitted that they initially did not know where they wanted to go with the story, and that they could make important changes with the new authors in “The Taken King.”
The current sources, allegedly from Bungie employees, give the “known facts” a new spin. Many fans believed that Bungie had unnecessarily butchered a super story “under pressure from Activision.” They use concept art as evidence for their thesis that a lot was cut out.
If you believe the six employees here, the story was neither super nor was there pressure from Activision, but the original author team had gone astray, and the story disappointed the decision-makers at Bungie. Perhaps this is not as spectacular as a huge conspiracy theory, but it is quite plausible. Because such a drastic cut of “We’re starting from scratch with the story” certainly does not happen without reason.
In a second article, we will address what the anonymous sources say about a possible future for Destiny and why the parallels between Destiny and Diablo 3 might be clearer than previously thought from the outside. Rumors about “free” DLCs are also circulating…
