Bungie Interview: Destiny 2’s Weapon Making Won’t Be Like Other MMOs

Weapon crafting will finally enter the Destiny universe in Destiny 2: The Witch Queen on February 22, 2022. Bungie has yet to reveal much information about this system, but we spoke to destiny 2 Game Director Joe Blackburn and GM Justin Truman on how weapon crafting works, what it brings to Destiny, and the benefits of the crafting weapon: the sword.

At last week’s Destiny Showcase, Bungie reps called the crafting system “combat-based,” but never gave any other explanation. In the original version destiny, weapons would drop for players with locked perks, and players would beat enemies and spend resources to unlock a weapon’s full potential. Bungie’s description got us thinking Destiny 2The Craft would follow a similar situation, but as usual, the studio doesn’t just want to repeat the past.

“It is certainly a more in-depth system than anything we had in [the original Destiny]”said Blackburn.” We really want you to feel like you connect with whatever things you are most passionate about. “

But craftsmanship in The witch queen also won’t look like the crafting in other loot-based RPGs. “I think we all have the MMO, ‘Hey, how do I level up and do some crafting’, and it’s like, ‘Well I make 1,000 of that bad pickaxe, and then I do one thing that matters to me ‘, and that’s what crafting is, “Blackburn said.” We really want it to feel more sacred, more special. And we want to. [you] to have that kind of long relationship with your guns. And when you master a weapon, we want you to be like, “Yeah, I took a while, I put on fat. And I feel like an expert with this thing. And so I don’t think you can feel like an expert if you’re, you know, going around destinations, picking up weed, and then you’re like, “Yeah, I’m turning all that weed into. gun.”

Blackburn went on to suggest that the weapon crafting system would not play in Destiny 2neither is the current economy. A veteran player like me – with more resources than I know what to do with – won’t have a distinct advantage over a new player who is barely able to gather enough Legendary Shards to purchase an Exotic from Xur each week. “It’s a pretty new system, from scratch,” Blackburn said.

While Blackburn and Truman wouldn’t paint a clear picture of weapon-making – outside of how he would not work – we talked in a little more detail about the new type of sword weapon, which will come in both legendary and exotic flavors. The sword is a lance made up of three weapons in one: it protects, it shoots and it stabs. It’s a weapon of several firsts for Destiny, being the first craft-only weapon and the only melee weapon in first person (as opposed to swords and relic-type weapons that shoot the player from a third-person perspective) .

The sword is differentiated not only by its acquisition and the perspective of its camera, but also by its type of ammunition and its flexibility. “We’ve had melee before, but it’s also in the energy and the special, like, it’s a green ammo weapon,” Blackburn said, contrasting players with heavy ammo that players need to deal damage with swords. “We didn’t have that style. […] Even if you run out of ammo [with the glaive], you can stab something. Even if you have to reload, you can stab something. […] I think the first time someone picks up a sword and puts Swashbuckler on it, they’re like, ‘Oh, oh, I’m not going to reload then. I’m just gonna stab things and shoot things forever.

Blackburn wouldn’t go into a detailed description of how the sword works, but this quote does give us some interesting clues. First, players will need to reload their sword for some reason, whether it’s to fire the energy blast, use the shield, or some other unknown purpose. And Swords will have a greater influence on your loadout, as ammo is only needed for one aspect of the weapon, with melee-focused players seemingly not needing ammo at all.

Blackburn also suggests that players can directly place a perk like Swashbuckler on a sword with the crafting system. Swashbuckler grants bonus damage stacks on kills, and maximizes those stacks immediately after melee kills, making it the perfect advantage for a weapon like the Glaive. This lends credence to the idea that players will be able to directly select certain perks for their weapons through the crafting system.

As to why players would use a sword over other weapons, especially in difficult content, Blackburn spoke about its main advantage: encroachment. “We see this as a weapon that really allows you to encroach on the encampments,” Blackburn said. “You can imagine something like, ‘Oh my god, a hive keeper just died, his ghost is back over there. “There’s a Shrieker behind my back, I don’t have time to kill the Shrieker.” So you blow the [Glaive] protect yourself and advance towards the ghost and crush the ghost. “

As a ranged weapon, the sword lives in the short to medium range category, and the developers used the term “y fusion rifle” to describe it, rather than the shorter range shotgun. Between its melee prowess, its ranged shooting and its shield, the sword is in a way the Swiss army knife of long pointed sticks. It offers the ability to quickly fight enemies while you’re running low on ammo, detonate powerful enemies from a distance, and use the shield to protect yourself while resurrecting a friend in some of the most challenging content in the game.

Regarding the Crucible, Blackburn assured us that “the team made some really smart calls on PvP.” Bungie doesn’t want players to have immediate access to the shield, allowing them to repel attacks immediately when they spawn with special ammo. The duo didn’t go into detail on how the team is solving this problem, just that it’s something they have all thought about and have a solution for.

Aside from how useful the sword is and how players will put it together, Blackburn seemed most excited about how it looked on the backs of players. “You see people walking around the tower and they look like they’re coming out of a Knight’s Tale or something because they have this huge thing sticking to their backs, ”Blackburn said. With some of Destiny 2Already spanning the length of their Guardians, we will spend the next six months vividly imagining how the swords will outshine their medieval cousins.