The online shooter Destiny 2 incrementally advances the story surrounding Forsaken. The Black Armory has a lot of cool lore to offer. The problem is: Only a few Guardians are aware of it. Our author Sven thinks that should change.
Tonight, the Niobe Labs will launch in Destiny 2. This is a kind of event that aims to lead players to ignite the fourth and final forge of the Black Armory, the secret Burgusia Forge.
However, hardly anyone knows what the Labs entail and what we are actually supposed to do there. Yet, there are some clues in the lore surrounding the Black Armory, the Niobe Labs, and Ada-1, their operator.
Hardly anyone finds the clues.
That’s why only a few players gain insights into the lore: This lore completely passes by a large number of players. But why? The reason is the way Bungie recently integrated it into the game.
Recently, Bungie advanced the story of Forsaken behind the scenes, where the problem became clear: The story continued with a cutscene about the revival of Prince Uldren by a Ghost.
This important scene was, however, hidden behind an activity that is not necessarily part of the Guardians’ mandatory tasks. Therefore, many players do not engage in the weekly quest.
This twist was thus inaccessible to many fans – unless they go out of their way to find it on YouTube.
The lore, which provides interesting details about the Black Armory and Ada-1, comes in the form of 18 lore pages. However, all of these are RNG-dependent and currently available only as random drops from the Gofannon Forge. The drop rate is anything but generous.
Some lore books were already RNG-dependent in Forsaken. Anyone chasing the Chronist title can attest to this. But the Black Armory takes it to the extreme, hiding its entire lore collection behind the factor of chance.
Therefore, Bungie should change the presentation of the lore: The Guardians receive very little or sometimes nothing of the lore in-game.
And that is very unfortunate, because this lore sheds new light on Ada-1 and the Black Armory and gives the activity a meaningful lore context.
This presentation of the lore is evolving again more towards the Grimoire cards from Destiny 1, where one has to rely more on external sources if one wants to track the background and some developments completely.
Furthermore, with the Black Armory, the lore items come with an RNG component that makes the lore much less accessible than it was previously in Destiny 2 and even in Destiny 1 with the Grimoire cards.
This is exactly the opposite of what Bungie intended for Destiny 2 since Forsaken. Because they had announced that, at the request of fans, they wanted to make the lore more accessible within the game.
Therefore, in my opinion, Bungie should reconsider its recent lore presentation. It is a shame and essentially a waste of resources if a large part of the players misses out on everything the game and the surrounding story have to offer.
The lore explains why Ada-1 hates the Guardians
These details escape many Guardians: To clarify what many Guardians are currently missing, here are some of the most interesting backgrounds surrounding Ada-1 and the Black Armory from the 18 lore pages:
- The entries tell, among other things, the story of Ada’s mother, who was one of the founding members of the Black Armory (French family). The Black Armory itself was created to fight against the danger posed by the Traveler.
- This danger was apparently the Fallen. A large part of the story revolves around how Ada, her mother, and other founders of the Armory tried to survive the war. But as the story unfolds, it becomes clear that the greatest danger did not come from the Fallen themselves.
- The lore also tells about a group of Guardians described as “people with drones” who could revive them. These people preyed on families and tried to get weapon technologies from them. After several encounters with these Guardians, all founding members of the Black Armory were gradually killed. Ada herself was injured as a child.
- Ada herself was apparently later turned into an Exo in the Niobe Labs, the one she is today in the Tower. Her mother states in one of the entries that she transferred her deceased daughter’s consciousness into an Exo body. Apparently, Ada’s mortal remains were also interred in the labs.
- In the Niobe Labs, various things were developed – including new functions for Exos or methods to make weapons even deadlier.
- The lore also makes it clear why Ada hates the Guardians so much, as becomes evident in some dialogues with her. It also mentions how she takes out some Guardians and their Ghosts with a sniper rifle, which terrorized her mother because of the weapon technologies.
All these details are only accessible through corresponding lore entries and are not clearly communicated from within the game. If you are interested in exploring this lore further, you can find all 18 pages on the relevant page of the Ishtar Collective: The 18 lore entries of the Black Armory.
What do you think? Should Bungie change the way they recently present the lore in-game? Or are you not at all interested in such details?
