Why Bungie gets visual storytelling wrong (Destiny)

by Ragashingo , Official DBO Cryptarch, Sunday, July 26, 2015, 23:51 (3411 days ago) @ Avateur

But, while Destiny's storytelling (really, its in game storytelling as we all agree the Grimoire is pretty fantastic) fails on a lot of fronts and in a lot of ways, I do think you take it too far by concluding Destiny isn't about anything. The things that are happening in Destiny's in game story are great concepts. An alien race pillaging unprotected areas of the Earth, a second race ramping up invasion plans after they destroyed and drove us from our moon, a third race of robots who transform planet after planet to support their own life at the expense of ours have already taken over Mercury and are right next door working on Venus, and a fourth super militaristic race has set up a large presence on Mars. These concepts are communicated to the player and the game is about ending or turning back those threats in order to protect the last safe city on Earth. That these good concepts are not conveyed with anything near sufficient emotional weight or shock value is a disgrace, but even so the game is still about something.

Gotta disagree. I'd still say it's really not about anything. Okay, so we have one race pillaging unprotected parts of our planet. Why? What's their purpose? What do they care? Why aren't they doing everything they can to get at the Traveler or decimate the walls that remain? They're just there for us to kill.

Again, over and over across our conversations you just ignore or forget so much stuff! In game, with no outside sources we know:

1. The Fallen were looking for something in Old Russia and we learn that something was Rasputin. They were actively trying to hack him and we stopped them. Eris later tells us that Rasputin still controls powerful orbital weapons.

2. As for attacking The City and its walls, come on. Even in game the battle of Twilight Gap, where most of The Fallen attacked the walls is well established. It's all over item description since the beginning and in spoken dialogue in HoW.

It's hard to take your claims about Destiny's story seriously when you leave out important facts left and right.

Why are the Hive on the Moon doing their thing and preparing to invade? What's their beef with us?

The Vex appear to have been around doing their thing since before we were space-faring. What woke them up, assuming they were asleep, or what prevented them from getting to us by now? Why are they doing anything they're doing? Why were some worshipping the darkness?

What are the Cabal up to? Why Mars? What are they after? They could have probably appeared at Earth and crushed us by now.

You're right, the game is about ending or turning back those threats simply because they exist. They're there to kill because of the sole fact that they are there and they are the bads. Oh nos. We're doomed! That's not a story. That's not about the game being about anything. At this point, the only reason they are there is to give you, the player, something to shoot at while exploring the mostly empty worlds.

As I've said before you're too much like Cody. Bungie said we're going to Saturn. We didn't go there at first. Bungie lied, right? No! Our journey to Saturn was just not part of the Year One plan. Have you considered that maybe just maybe that Destiny really is on a ten year schedule and that maybe just maybe the stories of the Fallen, Hive, Vex, and Cabal are still being told?

But the implication that people believe him is there. And that another character has told your Guardian they think the Speaker is a fraud does raise questions in your mind. Why is he allowed a choice place in the Tower? If he is a fraud what is his real goal? He does send us on urgent missions and does (sorta) let us know that our defeat of the Darkness in The Black Garden had a positive effect on The Traveler. He does even speak to people who pay attention to him at the close of the game.... which is before Brother Vance tells you his is a fraud. Should his character and his actions have been shown significantly more? Absolutely! Same with all the characters. But, as someone who does apparently care about Destiny's story, it is wrong for you to claim it was all about nothing. You and I and others who care about Destiny know it is about something... just, for some unknown reason, that something did not make it into the game with anything as close to the weight we were expecting.

You're describing a lot of telling and just about no showing. You're actually backing up Cody's points completely. In other words, there still isn't much there at all. I care about Destiny and its story a ton, and I highly disagree with you when you say that I know it's about something. I've also gone as far previously as to state that Destiny has no narrative. Currently, Destiny isn't about anything other than killing the things because there are things that need killing, and there might be a person or two out there who think that the Speaker is a fraud about it all. Woo. Well, I guess that is something by its very basic nature of being something, so I guess that would make you right after all.

Get your facts straight about what is and isn't in Destiny before criticizing it. And drop the sarcasm. I'm being serious and engaging in honest debate while you're getting your facts wrong and being flippant. How do you know there is no narrative if you can't seem to acknowledge what is in the game?! :/

I agree that the reveal and implications around The Darkness in The Black Garden was horribly mishandled. Of all the problems with Destiny the part where our Ghost says (and I'm paraphrasing here): "I got a text message from the Speaker. He says: 'Traveler all better now. K Thx Bye'" infuriates me to no end. The biggest, more important result of all our actions in the entire game lead up to that point and its resolution is a short text message read to us by our Ghost while the return to orbit countdown starts up. But we were also told in that mission that the fate of The Traveler, the one thing that is protecting our last city, was hanging in the balance of our actions. It's there in the audio and in the subtitles. Is it terrible that it is conveyed as badly as it is? That we don't even know why it was critical we stop that blob of Darkness at that specific moment? Sure! But you can't ignore that it was there.

But you can ignore that it was there because literally nothing came of it. Aside from someone telling you something, to this point, have you seen any indication that the Traveler is better or safer or more powerful or better off from before we dealt with it? No. It's just someone telling us, and we have to take his word for it (or not)(or option #3, I have zero evidence to support or not support that what we did mattered because Bungie has failed to show us anything supporting either cause).

A couple of months ago you could have legitimately claimed that killing Crota had no effect. Now we know it had a major effect! Oryx is coming! We now also know that there is a strike in TTK where the Vex try and restore the mind we killed at the center of Venus by pulling it through time.

Perhaps what we did to help The Traveler will also be addressed at the appropriate time. Maybe our helping it is what unlocks our new subclasses? At the very least, The Traveler is a key important character in Destiny. It's Destiny's face and draw to the outside world. You really think its story will never ever advance again?

Because Destiny is also a fun game. It would be a heck of a lot better if it were a fun game with a compelling story, but it is still a fun game.

Agreed in full.

Maybe the characters will stand up for something during gameplay and in well done cutscene? My hope is Bungie hasn't shown us that happening because they are Bungie and have always liked maintaining story secrecy. Maybe that will happen and maybe it won't, but we have no way to tell from what they've released about The Taken King so far...

I have high enough hopes to be optimistic on this front, but also enough, I dunno what to call it, awareness maybe, to know that odds are the above totally won't happen until at least Destiny 2 or something. But for real, here's hoping Taken King blows minds on the story front!

Agreed. I wish Bungie would either come out and admit that they simply screwed up but will try to do better (if that's what happened) or come out and say delays with the Destiny engine and pressures of shipping for four consoles unfortunately had a unintended impact on the initial storytelling (if that's what happened) or tell us that the way things are is all part of the plan, that players who just want to shoot stuff can and players who want to dig deep into the universe also can (if that was their intention all along.) Right now, we're unfortunately left bewildered at how our favorite developer continued its gameplay excellence but failed quite badly at in game storytelling. :(

And I think Bungie would actually get a ton of praise for daring to admit such a thing, and a ton of revived optimism and excitement if they proclaim that they have some major story stuff coming in the future (with the Taken King hopefully being a first step). Or maybe we'll have to wait until Destiny 2 for them to be willing to admit that type of thing as preparation to hype up the sequel portions.

Maybe. Recall they didn't exactly tell us how bad Halo 2s development went until a good while after its release. They talked about it being awesome, a burning car chased by ninjas through a hospital zone or whatever. They neglected to mention they were forced to lop off the ending. Perhaps we'll learn similar about Destiny some day...

Look, Destiny's in game story is bad. I don't dispute that. But you have yet to back up your "no narrative" claim and you never will unless you can fit your claim with the facts. So, a friendly challenge to you: Either make your claim fit or stop making it. Fair?