I think you nailed it

by Xenos , Shores of Time, Monday, March 18, 2013, 10:13 (4057 days ago) @ Beorn

Bungie has always been good about creating universes and backstory. In my opinion Bungie hasn't been so good lately on the narrative portion, but there is imagination and fun stuff to explore in the settings.

Agreed.

I remember finding tons of secret terminals in Marathon, and going places I shouldn't and finding out a lot of behind the scenes stuff in Deus Ex. That kind of thing you can't really do in other mediums. It's not a narrative; it's exploration of a setting.

I've missed this exploration component in modern games, particularly in the FPS genre. I think this is one reason why Marathon (and Star Wars: Dark Forces, as well) really stood out to me in the first place; you as the player weren't completely on rails, had the freedom to explore the environment beyond what was required by the mission parameters, and were duly rewarded for your exploration throughout the game.

If Destiny can capture that sense of awe and exploration, then it's going to be a huge hit!

This is one thing I enjoyed a lot in the Bioshock games. You can learn a lot of extra story wandering around listening to the audio diaries. Bioshock in my opinion brings back a lot of the classic shooter elements that I miss while still being a modern shooter. I'm hoping with how expansive a world Bioshock is that they will put in extras like that throughout the world.