Bungie on breaking this year and building a better future for Destiny • Eurogamer.net



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It was a great year for Destiny, but maybe even bigger for the team building it. Rupture of his long-term relationship with publisher Activision, Bungie now boldly guides the future of his solo franchise.

Significant changes have already been announced – cross-save, go live in recent days, and the upcoming New Light, a free entry point that must play this year with the Destiny 2 extension of Shadowkeep October 1st. And then, a version for Stadia.

Here at Gamescom, Shadowkeep is just part of the story. But it's important, because Bungie is talking elsewhere about the current state of his game and the future of multiplayer mode.

Shadowkeep seems in some ways similar to Rise of Iron, the extension of Destiny 1. Both arrive at the beginning of the third year of each game and both present a familiar place expanded and modified by its history. But Rise of Iron was also built while Bungie was preparing Destiny 2 in the background. How does Shadowkeep and the coming seasons of this year fit into the future?

Bungie's director of communications David "Deej" Dague and lead producer Scott Taylor answer questions about the studio's past, present and future. They join for the last part of the interview after attending another Gamescom meeting.

How did independence change the studio logistically, philosophically? Do you feel different at the studio these days?

Deej: Day to day on the development side, things are not that different, really. It's at places such as Gamescom that we come into contact with our publishing team, our new Bungie teammates in overseas markets working on Destiny, where we are still wrapping our arms around. this global community. But when it comes to decision-making, our creatives continue to call the pitchers as they have always been about what they want the game to be.

We want to make the best game possible and the longer we do it, the better we understand the people who play it. So, if Bungie looks different these days, it allows us to better understand what Destiny is, why it is valuable to the players and where we want to take it.

Will this year's big changes – cross-back, free to play with New Light – come from independence?

Deej: Bungie is always proud to be flexible and adaptable. The industry has changed a lot and we have always been willing to evolve with it. We will do everything we think is best for the community and welcome new people. Sometimes these are painful developments – when we merged the Halo nation with the PlayStation nation, some of those times when new people joined Bungie.net join the clans and ask questions. But I am very sensitive to the fact that the vitality of a community lies in its ability to attract new faces to keep it fresh.

If you think about the years spent at Gamescom – we had conversations during which we said: "It's a great place to join the community. If you buy this and that, you will all be caught off guard. buy this thing that we have. We would be talking about new stuff with a Destiny base fan, but for the one at the edge of the fence, we had all these complex business considerations to go through to get caught with someone who was already playing. Now we open the door and say, come in, take a look, if you like this place and you want to make it your hobby, there is a community here that will take you on new adventures.

Could you have done these things under Activision?

Deej: I do not know. I think we must dispel the idea that Activision was a prohibitive suzerain who did not allow us to do incredible things. We launched this franchise with Activision. Naturally, over time, we both decided that we had different goals for what we wanted, so we separated. It was amicable, and here we are doing this game ourselves, doing what we think we need to do to make it great.

Destiny 2 has benefited from additional muscle development in High Moon and Vicarious Visions, which of course belong to Activision. How do you handle the loss of that?

Deej: By doing all the work ourselves! We are determined to do everything we currently do – Solstice of Heroes, Moments of Triumph, Shadowkeep, Season of the Undying and three more seasons later … There is really nothing else to say apart from us & # 39; We are now alone and fate will be what we will do with it.

I've heard a call for more details on how limited content in Destiny 2's upcoming seasons would work. If I am busy during a given season (on vacation or at work), what will be available to play or chase after the end?

Deej: The people in our development team need to talk more about our plans for this year's seasons and I know this conversation is going on behind the scenes. We will have one when we return from Gamescom. But I know that there are questions and it's a curiosity that we will satisfy in the coming weeks.

I'm looking forward to hanging out with Eris again in Shadowkeep, but players are curious to know when the plot threads of Destiny 2 – * Cough *, Pyramid Ships – will be fired. What can you say to players who wait patiently?

Taylor: Shadowkeep absolutely advances Destiny's main narrative threads. Although we liked doing what we think [as] Parallel stories that explore nooks of the Destiny universe in previous extensions, Shadowkeep advances the story of Destiny.

Another thing that excites us is how the story of Shadowkeep launches the stories explored during the Season of the Immortals and all the other seasons of the third year. No story bothering me!

As Chief Architect at Rise of Iron, you had the unenviable job of guiding as another part of the studio was simultaneously preparing D2. What lessons do you draw from keeping all these plates rotating, and how do you apply them to both Shadowkeep and What's Next?

Taylor: It's a pretty different situation this time around. With Rise of Iron, we knew we were going to close Destiny 1 during the development of Destiny 2. This time, with our continued commitment to Destiny 2 and the seasons beyond Shadowkeep, it was more about ensuring that that all our efforts this fall – and beyond – to align our global objectives with the franchise – a unique world in constant evolution; MMO action and deeper RPG elements; and play anytime, anywhere.

This means that the main challenge that the team has taken up was to align the development deadlines and objectives for Shadowkeep, New Light, Stadia, Season of the Undying and all the updates of our systems like Armor 2.0, Cross Save and Finishers were synchronized and complimented. We are now excited to get all this content in the hands of players so that it can inform us of what we will do after Destiny 2.

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