Did Cody just take an Art History class or something? (Destiny)

by Durandal, Sunday, July 26, 2015, 20:10 (3408 days ago) @ naturl selexion

I disagree that emotional engagement is tied to the medium. There are awful movies, books and games. It isn't that there isn't enough text or that the text isn't good enough, or that games shouldn't be text. The issue isn't even emotion. The issue is immersion and agency.

Destiny mainly suffers from a lack of immersion. 99% of the game experience is shooting the same 21 guys in various scenic locations. The 1% of the time you are getting pieces of the world outside of shooting something just isn't enough.

Lets look at "the last of us", a game with far fewer mechanics and no MP. The game relies heavily on telling Joel and Ellie's story, and that story involves lots of character growth. The writing uses the characters and their interaction while on the overmission to draw the player in. The player is given lots of choices on how to engage enemies, to avoid and sneak past or go in guns blazing. So there is a large sense of agency for the player that is complimented by the interaction with NPCs who give the plot/story dumps.

Just imagine instead of the Dinklebot voiceover on your first visit to Venus you had to track down one of the last guardians from a doomed first expedition. Unknown to you, the Vex had swarmed and destroyed the Vanguard's initial probing force and he is all that's left. While searching Venus you are constantly ambushed by Vex Goblins, until you find this guy, and help him get the sensor net back up. That lets you clear out the old camp and restore contact with Earth ( and get your sparrow) and the rest of the mission is going to meet the Exo Stranger.

A cantankerous old hunter could have provided lots of colorful commentary on what's known about the Vex during a bunch of simple button pressing quests and would have drawn characters into the game more. Perhaps if Bungie added some Mass Effect style agency where you could through your actions save more people or something and have him open up some stores at the base camp or give a clue to some ancient weapon. You could have learned all sorts of interesting things about the Vex, and it still would have been pretty mysterious, perhaps even more so.

The closest Destiny comes to that is the first lunar mission. There is little else in the game that really gives any info, aside from the Stranger's one cutscene. All the quotes in the weapon descriptions and quips from the Tower NPCs are interesting, but
there is no sense of the lore behind it, or linkage to a story that appeals to the player. It has all the "legend" of ordering a #3 at the drive through and paying with vanguard marks looted from a gangbanger you beat up along the way.

So if the missions offer no real glimpse into the world, and the world itself does not allow the players to interact with it, then the story falls pretty flat.