Thanks! (Destiny)

by Claude Errera , Monday, August 03, 2015, 19:03 (3499 days ago) @ narcogen

I do agree with you that the episodic nature of the gameplay creates an additional challenge to the story-telling, and maybe that's why it's not at the forefront of the studio's priorities.

When I actually suggested, back before ODST, that I would love Bungie to pursue an episodic model (it was not yet clear at that time, I think, how thoroughly Valve had failed with their experiment with it) it was because of the advantages that model has for storytelling. You can't honestly look, just to name very recent examples, at Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, Better Call Saul, Mad Men, and quite a few others, and say that an episodic format is inherently detrimental to storytelling. Quite the opposite!

He didn't say that the format is detrimental to storytelling - he said that it creates an additional challenge. And it does. (And challenges translate to extra time, and extra money, which can lead to de-prioritization.)

Doesn't mean it hasn't been made to work, and work really well, lots and lots and lots and lots of times. Remember, most of Dickens was originally released as episodic content.