Something’s Missing: Characters That Do Things (Destiny)

by Ragashingo , Official DBO Cryptarch, Thursday, April 26, 2018, 19:48 (2214 days ago)

In Bungie’s Halo games, of course the player character (usually the Master Chief, but also the Rookie and Noble 6 and the Arbiter) did a bunch of important things. Ultimately we defeated the Flood and the Covenant among many many other acts of small and large scale. But, in the Halo series, storyline characters also did a lot. For instance:

Captain Keyes directed the Chief to the Silent Cartographer island and… unfortunately… unsealed the Flood.

Miranda Keyes and Sargent Johnson retrieved the Delta Halo’s Index and ultimately stopped Tartarus alongside the Arbiter. They also brought the Chief a tank or two and shutdown one of the shield generator towers on Delta Halo. Johnson even nearly activated the entire Halo array with some help from the Prophet of Truth.

As mentioned, the Arbiter did a lot. He killed many Humans and lead the forces that overran Reach. He lost Halo 04 and was punished. He was betrayed by the Prophets and switched sides where he helped prevent the Covenant from firing the Halos.

Buck, Dare, Dutch, Romeo, and Mickey all had their own separate journeys and accomplishments after the Prophet of Regret fled New Mombasa. They rescued marines, blew up the ONI building, and obtained a valuable prize that would help the UNSC win the war. (I guess… did rescuing the Engineer ever actually come up again?)

Nobel Team, as well, accomplished a lot without Noble 6’s direct intervention. Most notably, Jorge stayed behind to take out the Supercarrier, Kat was vital multiple times in keeping communication lines open, Carter rammed the Scarab, Jun planted explosives critical to assaulting the Covenant’s front line, and Emile helped protect the Pillar of Autumn.

The What:

These kind of things have not happened in Destiny. Certainly not in such a direct, in-game way. And even pulling in the lore doesn’t help things much.

The Iron Lords had some of the biggest impacts in Destiny so far. They helped end the tyranny of Light bearers with bad motives. They almost certainly founded The City. They helped prevent the spread of SIVA… after they woke it up… Lord Saladin remained active and on patrol for the next 500ish years and presumably kept groups of Fallen at bay, but we don’t hear much about his actions after his brother and sister Iron Lords were killed.

Then there’s the old heroes like Shin Malphur and Rezyl Azzir. Rezyl was one of the most powerful heroes of the early City but then was corrupted by the Hive, became Dregden Yor and murdered many including at least one Guardian. Shin Malphur tracked down and had a Last Word with Dregden Yor and continued to advise The City up to the current day.

Pahanin, Kabr, and Praedyth all accomplished a little in the Vault of Glass that ultimately helped our Guardian defeat the Vex there. But they did all that in the past and we never met them.

Of Guardians in the Tower, Shaxx and the others helped defend The City’s walls during the Battle of Twilight Gap. And he runs the Crucible. But apparently all he does these days is… run the Crucible.

Eris Morn failed to kill Crota and then enacted some plan with Mara Sov (Queen of the Reef) which saw Mara apparently killed and had Eris leave to peruse the Hive further and she hasn’t been heard from since.

Toland the Shattered apparently learned how the Hive transcend death and is busy with some mad scheme. Maybe he’s helping. Maybe he’s becoming a new Hive god. But he vanished into the Hive realms back when his fireteam failed to kill Crota…

The Exo Stranger pointed us in a good direction but always showed up before or after we did the fighting.

Osiris kinda helped foil a annoyingly vague Vex threat and has disappeared into the Infinite Forest where he occasionally almost helps the Vex destroy Humanity.

Saint-14 tried to seek out Osiris and instead got trapped in the Infinite Forest. He killed so many Vex, armies of them, that they came to respect him, but they also eventually figured out how to kill him meaning we never got to see him in action.

Asher Mir got his arm replaced with a Vex arm that is killing him and helped a little in advising us how to kill the Almighty… but he never left or leaves Io.

What about the Tower Leadershp? Well… what about them. Mostly, they lead from the top instead of getting out there and fighting.

Ikora Rey was supposedly really good in the Crucible and does have her network of Hidden which, aside from Eris Morn, we’ve heard little to no impact from. She did help us get back into the Infinite Forest but then stayed outside and… what… hoped for the best?

Cayde-6 lost a bet and so was forced into the role of Vanguard. He did have some adventures on the moon, but nowadays, he mostly pawns his work off on other Guardians while having the occasional good idea.

The Speaker… according to the Osiris comics… exiled Osiris when Osiris dared to consider that maybe we have something to learn from our enemies. And then he got captured by Ghaul and his entire gotcha moment was admitting that… he served no real purpose… at all. Take that, Ghaul???

And then there’s Zavala. He’s the commander of The City’s defenses and the leader of the Vanguard. But what has he ever done that we know about? He was there as The City built its great walls. He probably helped evacuate civilians when the Fallen set fire to London… and… I suppose he helped protect some civilians when the Red Legion attacked The Tower and kinda helped clear our way to fight Ghaul… but that’s it. Even reaching into the deepest, most speculative bit of lore I know about… it’s possible that Zavala sorta abandoned the Queen of the Reef to help defend The City and the Traveler… but there’s not enough out there to pin that down anywhere near conclusively.

The Why

Why does it feel like characters from Halo did a lot more than similarly placed characters in Destiny?

Well, for one, many of the Halo characters died for the greater good. Not all of them accomplished something with their deaths, but many did. As of yet, only Mara Sov has given her life for the greater good. (Yes, she’s probably coming back eventually, but I think it does her a disservice to discount her sacrifice in this context… at least until we learn more if and when she returns.)

That said, I tend to think that killing off a character, while sometimes impactful, isn’t and shouldn’t be the only way they can make a different. And in that, Halo has a massive lead over Destiny.

We played along side every single significant Halo character that I can think of. And even when we weren’t fighting beside them, they were frequently involved in important missions that accomplished important things. For instance, sure the Chief and Miranda split up on Delta Halo, but she and Johnson retrieved the Index.

In Destiny, Only Osiris, Eris, Saladin, and Ikora have ever directly assisted our Guardians during our missions as far as I can recall. Osiris, in the end, directly helps us defeat the Vex mind in the Infinite Forest. Eris pulled us away from Crota’s Death Ceremony. Ikora, as mentioned was there to open the Infinite Forest. And Saladin swooped in and shot a couple of Fallen who appeared behind us. Ok, sure… I guess the Vanguard did help a little in the retaking of the City, as well.

But almost every other major action taken by a hero figure in Destiny was taken in the past long before our Ghost even found our Guardian. What we mostly got from the other heroes in Destiny’s story so far is voice overs and radioed instructions.

Possible Solutions:

I am a little hesitant to suggest killing off characters as a solution. Partially because it seems like the easiest way out, and partially because you should only kill an important character if they’d done important things that has made the player care about them. If you kill off someone who has done absolutely nothing in game or in lore… well you just killed off the Speaker to no appearing consequence…

But, as hesitant as I am, a good character death would and could be impactful. Again, it would have to be done right which basically means that character would need to be more involved in things any Destiny character to date, but a good death would help.

A time when all Guardians have been stripped of their light would seem to be a great time for tragic heroism. Oh well.

So, maybe that’s step one. Get at least one of the current Destiny characters actually involved in the story. Get them out of the Tower. Get them into the world. They don’t necessarily need to fight beside us as AI controlled heroes often don’t fight well enough to match our expectations (though Ikora killing that one dropship with a Nova Bomb was pretty neat) but if they aren’t beside us they need to be obviously and actively doing something just as important as the things we’re doing.

For best results, have them in cutscenes, and have them destroy or deactivate, or delay something that directly and visibly helps us in our in-game mission. (Amanda Holliday turning off the shield walls as we retook The City was a small example of this.)

In a way, this is sorta a combination and culmination of the other Something’s Missing topics. But… I think this is ultimately the most important. If you get good characters and characters actions you’ve instantly got much better story. If you have better story, you’ll have better missions and gameplay. And if Destiny had better story and gameplay it would be more like the thing that it seemed Bungie initially set out for it to be.

I want the Destiny that was supposed to be “bigger than Halo.”