We have all read it, watched it, played it and even went to the second page of google to find why the story of Destiny is flat like this. This is Bungie people! Do you seriously think the developers of the great game Halo went and created this piece of crap?!? Even if Activision wanted to cut the content and the developers went for it, I think their motives might gives us the greatest story ever. As you know, you appear on the middle of this game with no answers, you are not even given an explanation. As you go through the game you get fed these lines: "The Hive was communicating with their King, or maybe their god". This is not explained further in the game, the only "god" you fight is in the black garden but its the VEX'S god. This got me thinking, then destiny went along and released the news about an upcoming DLC called The Dark Below in which, yes you guessed it, you fight their revived god/king Crota. I know I know, you probably feel betrayed that this was cut and made into a DLC even if they made a whole mission about the Hive communicating with him. But then I thought to myself "What if the story is so vague so we would have to adventure for it?". Now I know you are probably clicking away to a raid post but think about it. Destiny gave us a little piece of info about an upcoming DLC, this gave me more questions. I started to feel excited because even though I would have to pay for that DLC I would have a whole adventure about it, not a spoon fed flat single story mission for it. Then I went through the rest of the missions and I realized, EVERY SINGLE QUESTION THE GAME GIVES COULD BE A NEW ADVENTURE. Imagine, you wonder why we were revived? Well hop on on this amazing adventure about the guardian's origins and why were we revived. Is it just me or I feel an awesome back story coming up? Destiny's first game gave us a flat story with almost no answers, because the battle is still out there. They want us to fight for the knowledge, have whole adventures to discover the missing gaps. Would you rather a slow sad cutscene of the speaker explaining everything or another huge battle against a GOD!?!?
Maybe Destiny left us with a flat story at first and they have no excuse for that, but with each DLC they at least bring us a whole new adventure to explore the universe they have created. They should bring more content yes, but now to me the story opens new doors to future DLCs! Maybe a story arc? Maybe a Trilogy? Maybe a giant full blown war in the Cryptarch's house to wage revenge against him for giving me a fudging blue engram when I gave him a PURPLE ONE?!?!?!?!
Think about it, a great new adventure is out there. You want the answers? Fight for them.
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I'm reminded of how Marathon's story was told. All of the story could be found on computer terminals scattered through the levels. The obvious and easy to get terminals told the player the basics. However, there were hidden away and harder to reach terminals that told the deeper levels of the story. If the player wanted to know more about what was going on behind the scenes they had to search for terminals. And some of the terminals contained text that is never fully explained, and their meaning is still speculated on. In Destiny we are given only the bare bones of a story. Our character is revived and knows nothing. They have no memory of their former life and are being dragged into a world they don't know. Our character is told to run or they'll die, a rifle is being put into their hands, they're guided to fight and kill Fallen, and finally they're brought to the City and told it is humanities final refuge and that the character exists to fight for them. We're only told just enough to know that we need to go to this or that location to kill something. (This is a lot like the hero of Marathon. His name and history are a mystery, and he is guided into action by other characters.) Occasionally there are hints at the deeper story going on behind the scenes. The Exo Stranger recruits us for a conflict that had, up to that point, escaped the notice of the Guardians. She can't tell us everything, because she's racing against the clock in her war against the time and reality manipulating Vex. But she pulls us into a new area of this conflict. Shows us that there is more that we're not seeing. If the player wishes to dig deeper into the story they need to seek out dead Ghosts and Grimoire cards (which reminds me of the terminals of old). The Grimoire cards shows us the richer world and the many mysteries that we don't see. They provide us with puzzle pieces that can be put together with pieces found in the game in order to give us bigger pictures of what is really going on in the Destiny universe. Unfortunately, many don't like the Grimoire card format. Seeking information in a source outside of the game can take some players out of the gameplay experience, and makes it harder to enjoy the lore. I don't feel that way, but I can understand why some do feel that way. Fortunately, many have complained about the storytelling of Destiny. Bungie will likely seek to improve the story telling in future installments. Maybe give us ways of further exploring the lore in the game.