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Destiny 2 Was Rebooted in 2016

SweetNicole

SweetNicole

The Old Guard
Member
Oct 24, 2017
6,542
I saw this trending over on the /r/destinythegame subreddit, and I thought it was interesting. Destiny 2 was rebooted in 2016. Originally, this was reported on in September 27th, 2016 when Destiny 2 was undergoing development.

https://kotaku.com/sources-destiny-2-coming-to-pc-aims-to-feel-like-a-to-1787153460
In April, according to several sources, Bungie had a staff reorganization. During this process, The Taken King director Luke Smith and executive producer Mark Noseworthy became, respectively, director and executive producer of Destiny 2. They rebooted the story that had been written up to that point. A number of veteran Bungie staffers also left the studio around that time. Some went to big companies; others moved to indie development.
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The scope of the reboot now seems to be larger than implied in the above based on Jason's comments in his recent appearance on the DTR podcast.

jschreier said:
Nah, I was not implying that at all.
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The reboot was reconfirmed again recently in Jason's appearance on the DTR podcast.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_Z0RgwFnAc&feature=youtu.be&t=14m53s
I think that it [Destiny 2] was made in a relatively short period of time. There was a big reboot of Destiny 2 at some point of early 2016. There had been a previous director who was directing the game before Luke Smith (who's the current director) took over. So that guy was kind of put aside and Luke Smith took over. I believe that was in April of 2016 but I might be misremembering. Don't hold me to that exact line. So if you think about it that way then they didn't really have a ton of time. It had been a 16 months period between the reboot and when the game finally shipped.
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It seems that Destiny 2 suffered from a reboot in the same way that Destiny 1 did. Read The Messy, True Story Behind The Making Of Destiny if you are unfamiliar with the development problems of Destiny 1.

There's some great insights later on in the podcast including the length of the development of Destiny 1 (5 years with preproduction) vs Destiny 2 (16 months), the reasons behind Eververse (can't keep up with the speed of making a DLC every few months), and more. I'd say it is worth a listen if you're at all interested in some of the behind the scenes decisions that led to Destiny 2.
 
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Deleted member 31817

Nov 7, 2017
30,876
Man, Bungie seems to have been an absolute mess ever since Destiny 1 was underway and there was the exodus of staff members.
 
Starburns

Starburns

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Oct 30, 2017
866
Denver
I'd recommend any/everyone to read Blood, Sweat, and Pixels - which dives deep into the FUBAR situation of Destiny 1. Having played a fair bit of Destiny 2 (got powerlevel 295 on PC before the expansion came out, barely played since the DLC dropped), this new revelation makes a lot of sense. The game really feels disjointed.
 
Vic Damone Jr.

Vic Damone Jr.

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Oct 27, 2017
16,555
Of course it was, it's got all the signs of a game with troubled development. Especially after reading Blood Sweat and Pixels it's evident bungie went through practically the same troubles as the first if not worse.
 
Haze

Haze

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Oct 25, 2017
11,775
Detroit, MI
No wonder why the game seems like it's barely anything more than a glorified expansion. There's almost nothing new in the game.
 
GameShrink

GameShrink

Banned
Oct 29, 2017
2,680
It's scary how every problem with Destiny 2 is either parallel to, or an exaggeration of, an issue that already existed in Destiny 1.

The original "10-year-plan" is tragically hilarious by this point. Bungie can't even keep its shit together for two years, let alone a decade.
 
Mashdyno

Mashdyno

Member
Oct 27, 2017
380
Indianapolis, IN
Makes sense, destiny 2 was probably my biggest disappointment last year. Sooo hyped and just did not deliver. I bought the deluxe version and have not even seen the first expansion yet.
 

Deleted member 1003

User requested account closure
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Oct 25, 2017
10,638
Even after Destiny's experience and the studio growing even larger, they still cannot figure it out.
 
--R

--R

Being sued right now, please help me find a lawyer
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Oct 25, 2017
12,759
I think the Eververse bit is really important because people tend to blame the publisher without really knowing the truth. It's sad because D2 has a lot of potential. You can only imagine what both Destiny could be with a good development...
 
hank_tree

hank_tree

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Oct 26, 2017
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I think this should have been blatantly clear to everyone once Rise of Iron was released. It was clearly a dlc they got slightly expanded to try and tide people over for a year.
 
LightKiosk

LightKiosk

One Winged Slayer
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Oct 27, 2017
11,479
How can they let the same situation play out two times in a row. Surely you would think they'd learn from the first game.

At this point I wouldn't be surprised if we hear about Destiny 3 being last-minute rebooted.
 

Deleted member 2321

User requested account closure
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Oct 25, 2017
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I already knew this - not sure where I read this, might have been Jason´s book.

Anyway - my main takeaway is that we should go a little easier on Bungie, working on Destiny seems to be really hard.
 
Truant

Truant

Member
Oct 28, 2017
6,758
It's painfully evident, and it fucking sucks. Taken King showed a lot of promise, and you'd think the full force of Bungie would expand on that. Destiny 2 feels like an expansion that was retooled into a sequel at the last minute.

A thing that always bothered me about Destiny 1 was how the levels always felt like they were meant for something else. You have all these epic environments that obviously had a ton of work put into them, that felt painfully under-used in a lot of ways. That feeling still lingers in D2.

I guess there's always D3.
 
LordofPwn

LordofPwn

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Oct 27, 2017
4,402
Imagine what Destiny 1/2 could have been with clear direction and proper management for 3 years.
 
Verano

Verano

Banned
Oct 30, 2017
975
Could explain why everything feels shallow in the campaign..my guardian is a mute and there's no dead ghosts for me to find to enrich the experience of the red war...just hey do this and that and you're done!
 
Alucrid

Alucrid

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Oct 25, 2017
11,413
--R said:
I think the Eververse bit is really important because people tend to blame the publisher without really knowing the truth. It's sad because D2 has a lot of potential. You can only imagine what both Destiny could be with a good development...
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fool me once, shame on you. fool me twice, shame on me. fool me thrice, destiny 3?
 
Argot

Argot

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Oct 29, 2017
1,153
Between that oral history of Halo article and the Destiny chapter in Blood, Sweat an Pixels it seems that flying by the seat of their pants is a Bungie staple, even more so than usual in the business. As games' scopes and budgets get larger and larger proper product management is just going to get more and more important.
 
Lukar

Lukar

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Oct 27, 2017
23,351
Really bums me out that they keep having the same problems after all these years. I love Destiny, but Bungie's issues with its development become very apparent after you play for a while. I hope that High Moon doing the bulk of the work on the next expansion (as was said later in that podcast) gives Bungie the time they need to really kick things in gear, but even so, all it seems like so far is a repeat of the first game, mistakes and all.

I don't know what the solution is, but I really hope the studio gets where it needs to be. Just doesn't really seem like they're heading upward.
 
Defuser

Defuser

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Oct 25, 2017
3,342
That doesn't explain why they tossed out all the D1 Post TTK improvements and settled on something inferior than D1 itself.

They could have rebooted D2 with all the D1 improvements but they didn't.
 
Post Call Gaming

Post Call Gaming

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Oct 29, 2017
458
LightKiosk said:
How can they let the same situation play out two times in a row. Surely you would think they'd learn from the first game.

At this point I wouldn't be surprised if we hear about Destiny 3 being last-minute rebooted.
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I think Destiny, as a series, just continues to have the issue of having to live up to the hype that was initially developed at the beginning of its PR campaign that had not yet dissipated.

People are still waiting for the game that was sold to us years ago, and I think the development team is well meaning and attempts to reach those expectations... and each time is faced with a situation where they have to hedge their bets, and it invariably shows each time.
 
VeePs

VeePs

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Oct 25, 2017
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GlamFM said:
I already knew this - not sure where I read this, might have been Jason´s book.

Anyway - my main takeaway is that we should go a little easier on Bungie, working on Destiny seems to be really hard.
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I don't see why any of us should be easier on Destiny. How many games out there have development troubles that we do not know about? Yes, we shouldn't be calling devs lazy or asking them to work harder - but that's common sense. No developer wants to deliver a bad product.

But if Destiny has some anti-consumer practices, shady tactics, and lack of elements like a proper story, the developers should rightfully be called out.

Bungie was the one who made the contract with Activision determining how fast sequels and DLC need to be pumped out. And this was after that whole Infinity Ward fiasco.
 

OldMuffin

Member
Nov 1, 2017
1,179
Ouch this is slowly starting to sound like a cursed franchise. The fact that activision is involved mustn't make the situation any better. Hopefully bungie will get back on track at some point. The last thing I want to see is them going away (though to be fair most of the original talent that made them bungie have left).
 
Dringus

Dringus

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Oct 27, 2017
1,929
GlamFM said:
I already knew this - not sure where I read this, might have been Jason´s book.

Anyway - my main takeaway is that we should go a little easier on Bungie, working on Destiny seems to be really hard.
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Eh, a little easier on some things, sure. Destiny does often attract a lot of overreaction nonsense (mostly from people that don't even play the damn game) but for fans of the franchise it's hard to just ignore the fact that internally they're a complete mess and need to get their shit together.
 

Deleted member 198

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
12,319
I mean yeah, I've been saying so since the game came out. With what Jason has reported, and looking just at the game systems, story, progression, cut content, it's pretty clear that everything was stringed together essentially last minute, again. So much content from D1 that was cut for D2, with an entire development studio working on said content, and it doesn't appear in the game? That's fucking insane.
 
Decarb

Decarb

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Oct 27, 2017
8,641
I'm guessing the cosmetic economy also saw an overhaul during that period seeing how Overwatch was raking in millions in lootboxes and people think its a fair system. They already had Eververse in place, just increase her inventory a hundred fold and lock it behind lootboxes.
 
P A Z

P A Z

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Oct 27, 2017
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This just tells me that there's never going to be a Destiny game like the vision of the first game Bungie originally hyped.

Too much turmoil, something deeply wrong in that studio, veterans wanting out, wrong people in charge, an apparent lack of confidence in anything they come up with.

Add that to the ridiculous contract they have with Activision and the game engine reportedly being a pain in the ass, it sounds like a miracle the games have turned out as well as they did. Or did at first.
 
Nateo

Nateo

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Oct 27, 2017
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If what we got was from the reboot then what kind of disaster was it before. Bungie have lost all credibility from me after the current title.
 
Chaos2Frozen

Chaos2Frozen

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Nov 3, 2017
28,025
AGAIN?! Again with this shit?!

Isn't that the main reason why the first Destiny's story was such a shit show? Because they scrapped everything and had to restart from scratch?
 
AegonSnake

AegonSnake

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
9,566
This explains how the game basically looks identical to the first game which was last gen. I was either expecting same last gen graphics with 60 fps or next gen graphics at 30 fps but i got neither. They simply didnt have time to revamp their archaic last gen engine.

The funny thing is that the version that was built from the ground up can run at 60 fps on a dual core $65 Pentium. Sure it runs those two cores at 3.2, and has two threads each making it a 4 core CPU. But the PS4 CPU runs at 1.6ghz and has 8 cores so it should easily be able to run the game at 60 fps despite all the fancy particle effects and A.I routines.
 
Doskoi Panda

Doskoi Panda

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Oct 27, 2017
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8017c6303e6150dc1d58915359dbfecb.gif


Yep, that's Destiny for you. What a mess of a franchise. What happened to you, Bungie? What the hell is wrong with you?
 
Outrun

Outrun

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Oct 30, 2017
5,782
What a mess...

I sure hope that they can avoid the clutches of Activision, and make games according to their own schedule.
 
Fiery Phoenix

Fiery Phoenix

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Oct 26, 2017
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I only hope they learn from these mistakes. There is going to be at least one more Destiny title in the foreseeable future, and it should be done right.
 
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