Bungie on Destiny 2\u2019s future: \u2018Witch Queen is a moment of acceleration towards the end\u2019 BungieDexerto sat down with Bungie in a roundtable interview to find out what learnings the developer is taking from Destiny 2\u2019s Witch Queen expansion into the game\u2019s future. Destiny 2 launched in 2017, but it\u2019d be fair to say it felt like the game truly hit its stride in the last couple of years. Beyond Light\u2019s more nuanced look at morality, as well as a series of interconnected seasonal narratives, meant that Destiny\u2019s universe finally started to take shape \u2014 culminating in last month\u2019s Witch Queen expansion. Praised by critics (you can find our review here) for its varied campaign and fun weapon-crafting, the expansion felt, in many ways, like Destiny 2 finally delivered on the franchise\u2019s promise that many hardcore fans (this writer included) spotted back in 2014. Following on from the expansion\u2019s release, Dexerto was invited to take part in a roundtable interview with some of the game\u2019s development team. The future of Destiny 2, as told by Bungie Destiny campaigns have, traditionally, been fairly straightforward affairs with a focus on leveling characters up to take on endgame activities. The Witch Queen bucks that trend somewhat, offering a longer, but more focused campaign \u2014 something Bungie has been working on for a while. \u201d I think our adjustment from being a big \u201ccampaign game\u201d to a live game changed our focus a bit,\u201d says Project Lead, Blake Battle. \u201cComing out of Forsaken [Destiny 2\u2019s 2018 expansion], we transitioned more to a seasonal model and we were focusing very much on, \u201cHey, like what\u2019s the, what\u2019s the real playable beat kind of content that we want to focus the majority of our attention on.\u201d \u201cWe\u2019ve definitely seen, in the last couple of years, of renewed interest from our fans when it comes to more long-form story content. And so with The Witch Queen, we really wanted to double down on that. And so we just had a very concerted effort on having a little more runway to tell a more thought-out story that\u2019s built into the greater narrative of the Destiny universe.\u201d Speaking about the difficulty of finding a balance between regular content and trying it in with story beats, Narrative Director Adam Grantham notes \u201cthere have been times where we\u2019ve leaned more this way and then leaned more that way and kind of corrected and then over-corrected.\u201d \u201cIt\u2019s been kind of like honing in on this more perfect version of Destiny, and I think we\u2019re closer now than we\u2019ve ever been with some of the updates over the past few years where we\u2019ve got this seasonal storytelling model that I think we\u2019ve gotten really good at.\u201d Bungie also took the surprising step of adding a replayable campaign to Destiny 2 for the first time, with a Legendary difficulty available for players that want to experience The Witch Queen at a level closer to endgame content. The good news is, Bungie isn\u2019t abandoning that idea. \u201cI can say that we are planning legendary difficulty mode for Lightfall [Destiny 2\u2019s next expansion]\u201d Battle reveals, \u201cbut without Joe [Blackburn, Game Director] here I\u2019m not going to go further than that right now.\u201d \u201cI think that with a renewed emphasis on the campaign and depth, it\u2019s not just about length. It\u2019s also about a meaningful experience, so adding a Legendary difficulty campaign allowed us to create an experience for those players that just want a more engaged, meaningful, difficult campaign experience while maintaining the classic campaign that gives more casual players a chance to enjoy the story.\u201d The Final Shape comes into focus Destiny\u2019s future will involve at least two new chapters, with The Final Shape billed as the culmination of the \u201cLight and Dark\u201d saga that has defined the franchise since it began. \u201cWhen we look at the roadmap now to the Final Shape, we are definitely focused on building momentum and driving towards this dramatic conclusion of the light and darkness saga. When you see something that feels like a piece being placed, and you think it\u2019s going to be relevant later, I\u2019d say you might be right,\u201d Grantham says. \u201cIn Destiny, we have a lot of \u201copen threat\u201d that we\u2019re planting year after year,\u201d Guillaume Colomb, Destiny 2\u2019s Senior Narrative lead reveals. \u201cAnd I think for the past couple of years, we really wanted to, instead of adding new ones, try to bring everything to a conclusion and Savathun was one of those big characters that were there that was impossible not to address.\u201d \u201cWe\u2019re going to try to bring everything back to that Final Shape, but not everything is probably going to be resolved by that \u2014 we want to keep some mysteries alive.\u201d \u201cWe look at it in this long-term planning: where are we trying to get to over the next several years?\u201d Grantham adds. \u201cWe know we\u2019ve got this kind of back catalog of creative stuff that, like all these different characters that have been out there for a while, and it was kind of like, okay, it makes sense to play the Savathun card here.\u201d \u201cAnd this is when we play this card, and anybody who\u2019s read the Destiny lore knows that it\u2019s a big deck and we\u2019ve got a lot of options there.\u201d \u201cWe view this as like, a moment of acceleration towards the end. When we talk about this, these last few releases, I look at the light and darkness saga as Destiny 1 \u201cvanilla\u201d all the way up to the Final Shape and this thing that we\u2019re working on now, Witch Queen and Lightfall, is this kind of acceleration towards that end.\u201d Read more: How to get all Witch Queen exotics – Speaking of Destiny lore, the Witch Queen\u2019s ending leaves plenty of open story threads, but to keep things spoiler-free we wanted to know more about Osiris\u2019 fate. After all, in the events leading up to the latest expansion, Savathun impersonated the legendary Warlock. Bungie wouldn\u2019t go into details, but they did confirm Osiris will have a role to play in the future. There\u2019s arguably never been a better time to be a Destiny fan, and we can\u2019t wait to see what\u2019s coming next for our Guardians. For more on Destiny 2, be sure to check out our other content for the loot shooter. Best PvP weapons | Destiny 2 Promo Codes | Destiny 2 Prime Gaming Rewards | Infamy Ranks Guide | Glory Ranks Guide | Current Xur location | Iron Banner countdown<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Bungie on Destiny 2\u2019s future: \u2018Witch Queen is a moment of acceleration towards the end\u2019 BungieDexerto sat down with Bungie in a roundtable interview to find out what learnings the developer is taking from Destiny 2\u2019s Witch Queen expansion into the game\u2019s future. Destiny 2 launched in 2017, but it\u2019d be fair to say it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40633"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40633\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}