TImelines and Environments (Destiny)

by ckamp, Tuesday, October 21, 2014, 15:57 (3468 days ago) @ Cody Miller

I think you are right, but I think there is even more going on. I got to thinking about why I felt tension in the Halo narratives and part of that was communicated via the world over time.

One of the strengths of the Halo games was that the environments of the world could help tell the story and reinforce your impact on the world over time. Think of the difference between the first have of Halo CE and the second half. Your actions in the world and the unfolding narrative allowed for the same geographic spaces to feel very different. The same can be said for the settings in Halo 2. High charity as the Arbiter is very different than High Charity as the Master Chief. Everything was moving forward towards a culmination and the environment helped reinforce this. In Halo 3, the whole skybox changed after I blew up that covenant gun. Even nostalgic visit to Alpha Halo II carried weight because of the narrative arc of these environments.

Destiny cannot do this. Every story in Destiny starts in the same geographic location, but people may be playing completely different moments of the narrative while occupying the same space. As such, the environment is crippled in its ability to tell stories about the events depicted in the game. Sure the environments can tell the story of the world before you showed up, but it cannot react at all to your actions. Your agency in the world feels a little bit empty. In Halo, when we replayed a level, we understood that it was linked to a particular time-frame in the narrative. There wasn't a disjointed feeling when we replayed it because the environment reflected that moment in time. In Destiny, when I replay a mission, I'm left feeling like I haven't really done anything.

A static game world is the biggest narrative challenge in my assessment. This feeds into the lack of an antagonist because, like player's character, they cannot affect change in the world. Sure, the grimoire alludes to the significance of our actions, but nothing is there telling me I saved the city. No one at the tower is greeting me as a champion. No one got threatened by the Darkness/Fallen/Vex/Hive.

This is sad because the encounters that are available as a result of their decision to have a shared world are amazing. I have so much fun in the environments they made. I love meeting strangers in the wild and I love the feeling it accomplishes. On the other hand, this comes at the cost of telling a story in which we have an impact or real agency in the world.

I'm trying to think of ways they could overcome this in the future. Maybe they could have different skyboxes and lighting depending upon when the missions are supposed to take place in the timeline so that a person doing a mission at the beginning of the game would see the world a little bit differently than someone who has already completed that portion. Keep the geometry the same, but instance the art. This is probably not technically possible but... one can hope.

I'd love to hear other people's thoughts on this. Are there any other creative ways to tell your story through the environment in a game like Destiny?