StalkerUKCG
Banned
Introduction
Destiny has had such a fascinating life so far and so many questions still go unanswered about it's development and the content being cut. It's incredibly unlikely that we will ever get real answers to many of our questions or a "post-moterm" so I've decided to do my best to dig into all the available media and put something together and hopefully shed some light on a potentially troubled development and over ambitious project.
I'll be using 2 reddit posts both of which are unverified, A leaked image also unconfirmed, I'll be scrubbing as most pre-release material as possible and also using info from data mined content. The main focus will be missing content both physical and story and how the game we play today seems to be only a fraction of the initial vision.
Story
Arguably the largest problem many have with destiny is the lack of any real story. Prior to launch most assumed the game would be a vast universal romp. Here is a quote about the story from Pete Parson in 2013
and it's certainly not like they didn't have a story in place, the game had been in development for 6 years of even longer according to Parson, and the story was something that had plenty of planning devoted to it in those six years.
It's been evident since launch that much of the story was cut, how much is unknown but a unverified post from reddit which I'll post in full below tells a very different tale to the destiny we played.
A few important things in this if you do a little digging. First is the progression order. Earth > Venus > Mars > Moon. This same order was also mentioned in 2013 Vidoc (linked at the bottom) The exact quote is "You can go from Earth to Venus to Mars to the Moon, to Saturn"
The current story doesn't even leave wiggle room for this chain of planets to occur. In the current progression you find the hive on earth and are then sent to the moon to find a missing guardian at which point you find out that the hive are raising an army, after slowing them down the exo stranger suddenly appears and request you vist Venus, She tells you of the Vex and how they are damaging the traveler with a piece of darkness and you must stop them, From this point you have to go to mars for reasons and ultimately the black garden at which point you destroy this piece of darkness and the game (in halo 2 fashion) abruptly ends.
It's sloppy stitched together story telling without even a shred of exposition and the events from starting the game to ending it are connected by the thinnest of threads.
Post game the whole hive plot line that was introduced at the start was rounded out with the first expansion, little to no story telling still but at least somewhat of a conclusion.
The second piece of noteworthy info from the reddit post is this excerpt about the crow "In the second mission on Earth you got to a certain point, and he swooped down knocked you out, and brought you to this secret base on Mars. There you met with some Guardians that abandoned the Traveler"
Now this "crow" was previously seen mentioned in the 2013 Vidoc during the mobile segment (Image here) the same segment also says "gain favor with the queen" It's heavily implied that the Crow is actually the princesses brother and the cutscene on earth talked about in the reddit is post is likely the one shown in the 2013 Vidoc (Image here)
I'm certain that it's more than safe to assume not only was the story of destiny cannibalized it was almost entirely rebuilt to serve as a basic framework for introducing the factions and little else.
We know Joe Staten someone who had a big hand in crafting stories at Bungie left 12 month prior to shipping which likely had a large impact on the story, It's entirely possible his departure was partly down to specific higher ups forcing the majority of his work to be thrown out.
A post from reddit sheds some light on this. Please note this person refused to verify himself and Deej commented that he was a troll. So take this with a grain of salt. I'm including it because I'm not entirely sure one was or another and much of what he says does match up with uncovered and datamined information
There is plenty of information to back this up. I'll touch on most of them in the following sections.
Cut Content and Features
It's no secret that on a content level destiny isn't really all that big, Many complaints revolve around the fact that you repeat the same section over and over. It's obviously the players choice to do this or loot drops or fun or whatever motivates them. The fact remains however that at launch the game was anything but huge. The only real end game content was the raid Vault of Glass.
So lets break down the content that was cut.
Factions
As they currently stand the 3 factions of the tower are almost entirely pointless, despite having some strong voice acting talent. Peter Stormare, James Remar and Shohreh Aghdashloo get a handful of lines between them. Factions serve no purpose. High end players have little to no use for their gear and low end players get the same stuff with a different skin from the Vangaurd who operate as a kind of default faction.
As mentioned in the reddit post some subtle hints exist here and there that factions originally had unique story arcs to them. Also 2 factions have either been cut or retooled. Seven Seraphs was one that was fairly prominent prior to launch, bungie staff wore tshirts bearing the logo, Osiris was also a faction originally it seems.
The nature of what osiris was originally intended to be is actually a bit confusing. He is heavily mentioned in the lore of the destiny as a warlock who studied Oryx the hive god and then moved to mercury. He has some level of relationship with the queen in the current story but originally who knows. I think it's safe to assume we would visit mercury and osiris at his lighthouse originally maybe as part of a story mission or maybe as part of that factions quest line. The biggest evidence for this is what appears to be Osiris in a cutscene at the Lighthouse (a location unreachable until DLC2 but either present on in heavy development March 2013) Image of Osiris
Locations
Again a huge gripe was that we only visited 3 of the planets and a moon, From what I can tell the original plan was something much grander. Saturn, Jupiter and Europa are all discussed locations. Image of Saturn
It's also hinted that the current locations should have been bigger. Early discussions talked about the swamps of new Chicago and early footage showed a pretty large forest location that looks entirely separate from the cosmodrome. Images of the Forest 1 2
Previous footage also shows plenty of locations that we still have not seen mostly hive related, potentially from the next DLC.
I think it's important to note here that while parts of the DLC where discovered early on by players get outside the map much of this content seems like it was originally planned for DLC content regardless. This means it wasn't budgeted as part of the main game and while activision are mandating a high price for the DLC it's has had extensive work done to it. Eris Morne and the Crota DLC seems pretty different to original plans and they spoke about how the reworked the entire format of story telling based on feedback for House of Wolves. HoW also seemed like it was originally going to contain something different to the Prison of Elders what exactly is unknown. It was classed as Raid early on but called Arena
Other Cut Content
A wealth of other content was cut, faction ships, shaders, weapons and armor, None of it vital but most likely to return as DLC. Most of this can be found at 2 excellent websites that have datamined the entire game. Finding the info requires some digging and what is included and what isn't isn't marked at all so it does require information as to what is in the game. Safe to say large amounts of content was in the game that didn't get used until DLC 1 and 2 or even still. DLC 1 and 2 however did include new content.
http://destinytracker.com
and
http://www.destinydb.com
Closing Note
Bungie are an ambitious studio, I think with the departure of Joe and Marty, The shipping state of games like Halo 2 and Destiny that that ambition isn't always a good thing.
Below I'll link among other things a full transcript of the AMA that a supposed bungie employee participated in. While unverified a few questions and answer do touch upon the inner workings and problems at the studio and how these affected development.
What shipped was on many levels an embarrassment. It's story isn't even something that could come close to rivaling lord of the rings or star wars. It's gameplay is repetitive. The only really solid thing about the entire game is the way the gunplay controls and that is the only thing that the gutting of the game likely didn't effect.
The game isn't without problems in the slightest but it's also not without it's upsides. As a player with 800+ hours invested I've got my worth out of the Ghost Edition and I'll be buying the Physical collectors edition of The Taken King. The gunplay, powers and mechanics of PvE and PvP encounters is some of the best I've played in a shooter.
Ultimately I think it's very safe to assume that 12-7 months prior to release much of the game was cut, why we will never know. I think conflicting interest might be the main thing. I have a feeling that Activision had a heavy hand in forcing some of these choices. Vidoc and content output from the studio took a nosedive around this time which is strange because if you look at the previous titles Halo 3 and Reach had heavy output of similar content up until launch.
The real shame of this is that the potential of telling a great story is still around. The Grimoire cards are incredibly disjointed but the stellar efforts of the community in putting them together results in some really really interesting stuff. Factions gain a real identity and reason to exist in the universe. Characters and Weapons become a whole lot more appealing. Enemy factions don't just seem like mindless bullet sponges they take on an a purpose and for some a sci fi awe that isn't easy to replicate.
I think the original vision for this game was one of sprawling worlds, a blurred line between good and evil with multiple factions on both sides and even some in the middle all doing what the could in a universe suffering harsher times. Maybe it will still achieve that. It does have 9 more years. The Dark Below, House of Wolves and the negative press surrounding The Taken King don't really bode well going into the games second year however.
