[quote]The first three paragraphs are simply opinions and soft-talk. If you want to get straight to the point, skip these first few paragraphs.[/quote]
[quote]There is also a brief summary at the bottom for those who don't have time to read it all.[/quote]
You may remember seeing this image (above) back in February 2013. We had hope. We believed we could discover such a place in this game. I myself had my mind blown, seeing such colorful and vast environments. We were ready for something big, something daring.
As time went by and April (the time of the "infosplosion") passed, we saw something different. In my opinion, it felt flat, with small things such as the HUD, all the way to the core experience suddenly feeling less of what I expected. Then the Alpha and Beta came, and we got a sneak peak of what we would be doing in the final product: grinding. Somehow we didn't really care that much. I, myself personally enjoyed the Alpha and Beta. After all, we were informed that it was [i]"only 10% of the game"[/i].
Hearing that, we looked back at early concept art, ViDocs and screenshots, believing there was much more to be discovered. But at launch, we quickly realized that this wasn't the case.
[quote]Actual article below[/quote]
However, at a glimmer of doubt, this was leaked.
http://blogs-images.forbes.com/jasonevangelho/files/2014/09/Screen-Shot-2014-09-28-at-11.41.35-PM.png
We knew about both expansions before launch thanks to E3 2014. Anyways, enough of the soft talk, I want to get straight to the point. So expecting a Raid in the next expansion is a no-brainer. With the Dark Below having [i]Crota's End[/i], we can surely expect a Fallen-themed raid. After all, the House of Wolves is a Fallen House who serve the Awoken out in the Reef. According to the leak (which is actually pretty old), the new raid will take place in the Reef. In case you don't know, The Reef is an asteroid belt at the edge of the Solar System, littered with obliterated ships which attempted to flee the darkness during the collapse. So far, the only thing we have are two cringe-inducing cutscenes which feel out of place, in my opinion. However, with this raid, it would seem odd to have it without an actual destination. It would make sense to include an entirely new location, which can host future story missions, strikes, etc. With all of this, I thought to myself: [quote][i]What would it be like to [b]patrol[/b] The Reef?[/i][/quote] Think about it. There is no actual ground/sky, for the Reef is out in open space. How would we get around? What would it look like? Then I thought of the flying city of Columbia from Bioshock Infinite:
Columbia is a city from the game Bioshock Infinite which takes place in a floating city. The explanation behind how the city floats is off topic, but what isn't is how the city is designed. Different buildings float individually, often connecting to each other to make bridges and districts. So what if we were to take that "moving building" concept and take into space; instead, we have to replace the buildings with large pieces of space junk. And because it is just a bunch of space junk, you shouldn't expect ships to magically click like puzzle pieces. Perhaps these large clusters of debris silently float past each other, and a few-meter gap is in between them. You as a guardian can take the risk to jump across in order to land on another piece of a ship, space station, or whatever. But what happens when this newly discovered location drifts off? That's when your sparrow comes in. You can summon your sparrow, and it will make some slight transformations to adapt to open space. You can use your transformed sparrow to glide across the emptiness of the Reef and reach places you couldn't go on foot. In order to give the player control while on foot, being inside structures or on asteroids will have low but exceptional gravity to keep guardians planted. Zero gravity only occurs when you jump into open space. When in open space, players can use their movement abilities for directional control, or use their sparrow to cover long distances with speed. Chests can be nearly anywhere, whether its floating above your head or orbiting around an asteroid.
Now the enemies. Judging from the Raid, it's safe to say that the Fallen will be the enemies. You can find them scavenging the remains of once-majestic colony ships, or extracting glimmer on larger asteroids.
TL:DR - Fly around in space with your sparrow and busts fallen heads as you move from one ruined ship to another.
Feel free to provide constructive criticism and your own ideas too!
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Maybe not floating around in space. My guess is that there will be the raid in the reef, and the rest will take place on venus