Canon Fodder

by narcogen , Andover, Massachusetts, Wednesday, March 13, 2013, 04:21 (4056 days ago) @ GrimBrother One

I've been thinking a lot recently about what shape the overall narrative is going to take in Destiny. What will be "canon"? Grim IV and I were discussing it the other day and I mused about where Destiny's canon trajectory would fall. I pondered a modern game scale to provide a measurable comparison canvas...

Halo

In Halo, very little is left to the player's choices in regards to what becomes official story. A few recent things that come to mind are Noble Six in Reach and members of Fireteam Crimson in H4 (don't give me that BS about "canon N6 being steel Mk V b; that was Thom's armor, and it would seem ridiculous if they happened to suit up his replacement in the same damn armor). The majority of the canon is given to us by the franchise stewards & creators directly.

I'd say canon is that produced by the latter. The former... it depends. Obviously we've already seen what happens when material from the creators bumps up against previous content from the franchise stewards (Halo: Reach).

Mass Effect

With the ME universe, there is quite a bit more that is left up to the player. For example, for attractive, intelligent, and all around good people, Commander Shepard is a smoking hot redhead female.

Damn straight. Or rather, bi.

EVE Online

EVE is on the far end of the choice spectrum. In some ways, the players themselves and particular feats of note become apart of the fabric of the game story and universe.

I'd go further. The players and their feats (individual and collective) are the only part of the story that matter. The creator-directed stuff, which is really only the top-down narrative driven by the political leadership of racial factions, which is the only thing that lies outside of player influence, is the least interesting part of the story canon. It pales in comparison to the drama generated by player corps and alliances.

Where do you think Destiny will fall? A big part of me feels like there will be a very interesting mix of each of these schools of thought when it comes to how the overarching story of Destiny will evolve and expand. The idea that we as players might end up becoming a greater part of the legend that lives on through the game is certainly a tantalizing one.

I think if multiplayer involves interaction between factions functioning like guilds or clans do, there's a lot of possibilities here for player-driven story.