Storytelling: slowly improving. (Destiny)

by Leviathan , Hotel Zanzibar, Wednesday, December 10, 2014, 10:27 (3874 days ago) @ Cody Miller

It's unfortunate that Bungie has not improved the storytelling with the DLC. It has all the same problems as Destiny, and a few extra.

There are no cutscenes, and all you get with regards to missions is the description by Eris when you are flying your ship to the destination. I think the strangest thing lacking to me was your ghost. You would think that your ghost would have something to say about Eris, and that there'd be a cutscene or something between them given that you have an actual character now. She shows up and not a peep, and nothing is really integrated into anything else. I think your ghost says ONE thing in the entire DLC, and that's a comment when you do the Black Garden strike, and only at the beginning.

I guess we will have to wait for Destiny 2 for improvements to the story, and storytelling.

I wasn't expecting a vast change in Bungie's approach to storytelling because lot of Dark Below's content was likely planned before release and being executed while Destiny was being shipped, and during that first month where a huge mass of feedback was coming in.

I don't think there's any possible way Bungie could have completely revolutionized the game on that time table in response to what you or I wanted out of Destiny. I cant even imagine how a group of people could possibly take in that epic mountain of varied feedback, distill it into something comprehensible, and decide what to do about it in that time, let alone begin to create an expansion implementing it!

That said, I still think The Dark Below is a step in the right direction, and I'm hoping the second DLC will have the opportunity to actually absorb all that feedback of the last couple of months and in regards to this DLC, and be more proactive about it. To me, House of Wolves will be a truer test of Bungie's rebuttal to criticism.

And there IS a cutscene. It appears next to the Tower in the map and introduces Eris and her backstory. Her missions are brief and don't go to as many new areas as I would like, but they are focused, fun, and lead right into one another as opposed to the more scattered launch missions. They build up, climax, then lead into the Strike and Raid.

The ability to fight an intense battle to classical music in the second level is one of the best parts of all the story missions thus far. I loved that!

The additional Quests are akin to unique, interesting bounties (similar to the Exotic Bounties, but less extensive) and I'm hoping those will continue to show up - they make the planets feel more alive and dynamic after months of Patrolling. I'd like to see the various city factions start to hand out these too, along enemies doing unique events on different planets, like the minions of Crota are doing now on Earth.