What if Destiny was $60 with 2 FREE expansions? (Destiny)

by Ragashingo , Official DBO Cryptarch, Tuesday, July 15, 2014, 21:53 (3581 days ago) @ Cody Miller

Brood War is a great example of an expansion done right, with it's good new story campaign along with it's changes to multiplayer, but I don't think it's the only way to make an expansion. The single best piece of DLC I ever bought was Mass Effect 3's Citadel DLC. It added very little in the way of new or novel gameplay, but it was extremely worth it to me because of the new, fun locations I got to visit, the characters I got to met up with again in completely different (non-combat) circumstances, and the wonderfully humorous, in-joke laden storyline it provided. In all it added three or so short combat missions and was 100% incidental to Mass Effect 3's main plot even though it was set well before that game's final missions. What I take from the Citadel DLC is a good expansion neither has to add new gameplay or affect the overall story to earn "good expansion" status.

The fact that it is optional though, means that it's integrated less than if it were part of the whole package

I don't think that's necessarily the case. I love well told story arc shows. My favorites would be Babylon 5 and Battlestar Galactica, but that kind of story structure is by no means the only way to do things, especially in video games.

Take Skyrim for example:

It had big, open world gameplay, many many quests to complete, and several larger storylines that affected the world. But it also had two great optional DLCs that affected the world just as much as the main storylines. The DLCs were just as well integrated as any other part of the game. They added new locations, new enemies, new gameplay, new weapons, new abilities, but they were only a positive for players. Not having the DLCs didn't break or confuse or diminish anything in the base game in the least. Neither DLC was critical to the main story, but then Skyrim's main story wasn't exactly critical to Skyrim either. Skyrim's fun came from being in the open world of Skyrim. You could complete a major story quest, that would end with real changes to the world, or you could at the start of the game turn around and go the "wrong" way and have fun doing something else. It wasn't a TV show with a middle, beginning, and end that had to be tightly maintained, but that's why I can load it up today and still find significant new to me content some two years later.

I think Destiny could very well be quite similar. The world is going to keep on spinning for the foreseeable future no matter what we do, mainly to allow brand new players to play with day one veterans. With no actual end, Bungie will be free to tell additional stories that might feel just as important and that are just as well integrated as the base game's main story without confusing anyone. All it takes is a little clever writing and a few preplanned hooks in the base game's world. Desinty's DLC could possibly be only a positive, just like Skyrim's was.