Halo 2 was different (Destiny)

by Durandal, Tuesday, October 20, 2015, 15:41 (3418 days ago) @ dogcow

Halo 2 was cutting features left and right, if you recall the "burning plane" chalkboard up at Bungie HQ.

Destiny sounds like they were too focused on the tools, art and game mechanics and the story didn't mature till late in development. I suspect this is why they ditched the "story chapter" mechanic where each mission was represented as a chapter in your character's story. That was one of the things I was most curious about, how they would tie your mission performance into a growing narrative about your character.

That mechanic would probably require a strongly linear game to support, otherwise you have too much variation to make all the chapters fit.

Given Staten's experience, the initial story was probably highly linear, like the Halo series. Without a chance to see what was planned we really can't make a judgement about it. Pre and post game intros and outtros would be interesting, but given the goal of replayabilty it would be a net negative. Just look at how the two missions with cut scenes were hated just for that.

So the dramatic rework meant that we are essentially without story, and the dev tools are still too immature for quick turnarounds. Bungie needs better tools so they can implement better content and iterate out of this mess.

From a historical perspective, this same story change happened on Marathon back in the day, and is the source for lots of the more interesting backstory in the terminals. For example one of the discarded story lines was that you were an immortal fighting other immortals in an arena...Hmmmmm.