In a recent interview with GamesRadar Luke Smith, director of Destiny 2, was asked what he thought the biggest change coming in Destiny 2 was. He responded by saying it was probably story, but not for the reason you might think.
Luke Smith didn’t simply mean the fact that Destiny 2 is going to have a story that isn’t just a bunch of missions that vaguely fir together, he means that Destiny 2’s story is going to be a cohesive one that fits a number of working parts into it.
In an open world game players have a cores story, a set of main quests through which they must progress in order to finish the game. However, layered in and around that story are other, smaller side quests that tell other slightly smaller tales from the same world. These tales flesh out the world, requiring the payer to go to parts of it that the main quest misses out. Finally you have the optional content, collectables, and one-off quests for zany characters who are really out of the way, waiting to be stumbled upon by unwitting players.
Destiny 2’s main quest is the Red War, in which Guardians are fighting against the Red Legion, claiming back their Light, and saving the traveller from the hands of an enemy. The story quests will take players from world to world, and will feature the show stopping moments that Bungie have put together to make people sit their in awe of how great Destiny 2 looks.
We know now that there will be other characters in and around the European Deadzone that Guardians will encounter and have battles alongside. What we don’t know yet is whether these characters will be providing the Side Quest content, whether they’ll be sending us off into the System to fetch or kill things in exchange for sweet loot. It would make sense that these characters are the Side content, as they’ll be taking up residence in different parts of the System where players can encounter them organically, without feeling like the story is being shoehorned. As long as these Side quests provide meaningful encounters, this should provide the layering to the story that Bungie is trying to achieve.
With regards to optional content, we know that we have Public Events and caches to go out and look for in the form of Lost Sectors. These areas form a great combination of collectable and story, giving us a chance to experience a part of the world that doesn’t have any relevance without them. Hopefully the balance of loot in these areas is enough to make them worthwhile, because it’s one thing to add in story content, but another entirely to swap in story where you should be rewarding amazing loot.
