You're as inconsistent as ever. (Destiny)

by Ragashingo , Official DBO Cryptarch, Friday, July 10, 2015, 07:14 (3662 days ago) @ Cody Miller

They did fine with text? What choice did the Marathon Security Officer ever make ever? Did Marathon have a narrative? It was just AI's giving you orders and talking to each other, right? Halo was great? What choices did the Master Chief ever make that affected the story? He took the initiative to give the Covenant back their bomb... That was it. Did ODST have a story? The Rookie never even spoke, he just found evidence that his team had been in the city earlier then helped them complete Dare's mission, right? How about Reach? Noble Six barely speaks and just followed orders until he covers for Captain Keyes at the very end. And even that is following Carter's order to see the Cortana fragment safely to the Autumn, right?

Fact is, our characters in Bungie games have never had much agency on their own. From Marathon to Reach we've mainly been the one person who could accomplish the impossible task and usually did so without question. Mai and Thel are the only two characters we ever played that didn't stick to their orders! That doesn't mean stories weren't told and narratives didn't happen. Bungie has given us some truly great stories over the decades despite the very limited agency shown by the player's character. Usually they used memorable secondary characters from Durandal to Cortana to Noble Team to drive the story along. And it appears maybe that's the way they are heading with The Taken King.