Destiny 2 ViDoc | Becoming Legend - Part 1: Confronting Oblivion

Destiny 2
23 May 202409:23

Summary

TLDRThe script from 'Destiny' discusses the game's resonant theme of 'Guardians make their own fate,' emphasizing player agency against external forces. It delves into storytelling challenges, highlighting the importance of selecting impactful ideas over quantity. The narrative focuses on purpose and fate, exploring emotional journeys and the struggle against The Witness, who seeks The Traveler's Light for salvation. The script also touches on the surreal and vast environments of The Pale Heart, the creation of new enemies like The Dread and The Husks, and the collaborative efforts between disciplines to craft a cohesive and immersive experience. The goal is to honor the player's investment in time and create a memorable journey that reflects both the Guardian's and Destiny's evolution.

Takeaways

  • ๐ŸŽฎ The line 'Guardians make their own fate' from Destiny 1 resonates deeply with both the game's players and the speaker, symbolizing the theme of self-determination against external forces.
  • ๐Ÿ“š The challenge for storytellers in Destiny's 10-year narrative is selecting the most impactful ideas to create a meaningful experience for players who have invested time in the game.
  • ๐Ÿงฉ The central theme that emerged for the Destiny story is 'purpose and fate,' which is crucial for both the player's character and the overarching narrative.
  • ๐Ÿ˜ข The speaker's emotional connection to the game is evident, as they mention crying while writing scripts, treating the game with the love of a fan.
  • ๐Ÿ›ก The Witness is portrayed as a self-proclaimed deity seeking the power of The Traveler's Light for its vision of salvation, with the player's mission to prevent it from obtaining this power.
  • ๐Ÿ—ฃ๏ธ The voice of The Witness is designed to be multi-layered, with whispers and textures in the background, suggesting a deeper subtext and hidden knowledge.
  • ๐ŸŒ The Pale Heart setting is meant to be surreal and vast, with the intention of creating a sense of scale and ambition that is both dangerous and awe-inspiring.
  • ๐Ÿค” The surreal elements in The Pale Heart are achieved by placing familiar objects, like hands and body parts, in unexpected contexts to create an unsettling yet visceral experience.
  • ๐Ÿ”Œ The Dread are a new enemy type in Destiny, created by The Witness using and altering the Light, and they speak a translatable Pyramid language.
  • ๐Ÿ‘ฝ The Husks are a unique and formidable addition to the game, with a design that suggests sentience and a sound effect that combines physical alien movements with water bladders and slapping jello.
  • ๐Ÿ”— The collaboration between different disciplines within the development team is highlighted as crucial for creating a cohesive and impactful final product.
  • ๐ŸŽ–๏ธ The speaker expresses confidence in the love, work, and thoughtfulness that the team has put into the game's release, anticipating a positive reception from players.

Q & A

  • What is the significance of the line 'Guardians make their own fate' in Destiny 1?

    -The line 'Guardians make their own fate' is significant because it resonates with Destiny players and the speaker personally, embodying a powerful theme of Destiny where external forces cannot impose a fate upon the Guardians or humanity; they must make their own.

  • What is the main challenge for storytellers when dealing with a 10-year story span in Destiny?

    -The main challenge for storytellers is not coming up with ideas, but knowing which ones are important. They aim to make players feel that their time investment is acknowledged and rewarded with an experience they've been waiting for.

  • What themes did the developers focus on when crafting the story for Destiny's expansion?

    -The developers focused on themes of purpose and fate, which they felt were resonant not just for the story itself, but for Destiny as a whole.

  • What is the role of The Witness in the story?

    -The Witness sees itself as the one true God and has come to The Traveler to acquire the power of The Traveler's Light to complete its vision. Its goal is salvation, and it seeks to rebirth everything, which the Guardians must prevent.

  • How does the speaker approach writing scripts for Destiny with a fan's perspective?

    -The speaker treats scriptwriting with the love of a fan, asking what they would want to see and hear, and this emotional connection leads to a more authentic and engaging narrative.

  • What is the purpose of the Guardian's confrontation with The Witness?

    -The purpose of the confrontation is for the Guardians to prevent The Witness from obtaining the Light of The Traveler, which it needs to fulfill its vision of salvation.

  • What does the speaker mean by 'putting characters into pressure cookers'?

    -This phrase refers to the storytelling technique of placing characters in intense, high-stakes situations to create drama and highlight their emotional journeys.

  • What was the concept behind creating the surreal elements in The Pale Heart?

    -The concept behind creating surreal elements involved putting familiar things out of context, playing with scale, unexpected elements, and repetition to create an unsettling yet visceral experience.

  • How did the developers approach the design and sound of The Husks in Destiny?

    -The developers used physical sounds like water bladders and slapping jello to create an alien-like sound for The Husks, giving them a unique and unsettling presence in the game.

  • What is the Pyramid language spoken by the new Dread units, and is it decipherable?

    -The Pyramid language is a new language spoken by the Dread units, created using a constructive language tool. It is translatable, allowing interested players to decipher what the units are saying.

  • How does the speaker describe the collaborative process between different disciplines in Destiny's development?

    -The speaker describes the collaborative process as one of trust and mutual respect, where the combined efforts of different disciplines result in a final product that is better than any individual could have achieved alone.

  • What is the significance of The Final Shape in the Destiny story?

    -The Final Shape represents a convergence of the Guardian's journey and Destiny's journey as a whole, evolving from uncertainty and challenge into an unknown future, reflecting the growth and direction of the game.

Outlines

00:00

๐ŸŽฎ Destiny's Journey and Purpose

The script discusses the evolution of the Destiny game, focusing on the powerful theme of 'Guardians make their own fate,' which resonates with both players and the developers. The narrative emphasizes the struggle against external forces trying to impose a fate on humanity, highlighting the importance of player agency. The developers' goal is to create a story that acknowledges the time and investment players have put into the game, aiming to deliver an experience they have been waiting for. They meticulously analyzed all past scripts and concepts to find a resonant theme for the game's overarching story, which turned out to be 'purpose and fate.' The emotional journey of the characters, the challenge of defeating The Witness, and the intense pressure of saving the world from a god-like entity are also highlighted. The script also touches on the creative process, including the use of surreal elements and unexpected imagery to enhance the game's atmosphere and narrative.

05:03

๐ŸŒŒ The Creation of The Pale Heart and New Enemies

This paragraph delves into the creative process behind The Pale Heart, a new destination in Destiny that aims to push the boundaries of what players expect from a gaming environment. The developers used surreal imagery, such as hands holding up a freeway and trees replaced with limbs, to create an unsettling yet visceral experience. The influence of The Witness on The Traveler and the game's races is explored, with The Dread being a new enemy type resulting from The Witness's experimentation with the Light. The Dread units speak a translatable Pyramid language, adding depth to their lore. The Husks, another new enemy, are described as a unique and challenging addition to the game, with their design and sound effects aiming to evoke a sense of alien and serious threat. The paragraph concludes with reflections on the collaborative efforts between different disciplines in game development and the confidence in the quality and thoughtfulness of the work put into the game's expansion.

Mindmap

Keywords

๐Ÿ’กGuardians

Guardians are the player characters in the Destiny game series, embodying protectors of humanity. They are central to the game's narrative and are portrayed as individuals who shape their own destiny, a key theme in the video. The script mentions 'Guardians make their own fate,' highlighting the idea that they are not just passive recipients of destiny but active creators.

๐Ÿ’กDestiny

Destiny refers to both the game series and the concept of fate or destiny within the game's lore. The video discusses the evolution of the Destiny story over ten years and the importance of the Guardians' role in shaping their own destiny, as well as the broader fate of humanity.

๐Ÿ’กFate

Fate, in the context of the video, is the predetermined course of events or outcomes that external forces attempt to impose on the Guardians and humanity. The script emphasizes the theme of overcoming these imposed fates, with the Guardians continually demonstrating their ability to forge their own paths.

๐Ÿ’กThe Witness

The Witness is a powerful entity within the Destiny universe that sees itself as the one true God. It seeks the power of The Traveler's Light to achieve its vision of salvation. The script describes the Witness's confrontation with The Traveler and the Guardians' mission to prevent it from obtaining the Light.

๐Ÿ’กThe Traveler

The Traveler is a mysterious, celestial entity central to the Destiny game's mythology. It is a source of power and Light that the Guardians draw upon. The script discusses The Witness's need for The Traveler's Light to complete its vision, positioning The Traveler as a pivotal element in the game's storyline.

๐Ÿ’กPurpose

Purpose is a key theme in the video, representing the driving force behind the actions of the Guardians and the game's characters. The script mentions that the story is about purpose and fate, suggesting that the characters are on a quest to fulfill their destinies and purposes amidst the challenges they face.

๐Ÿ’กThe Pale Heart

The Pale Heart is a location within the Destiny universe, described as a surreal and expansive environment. The script discusses the design philosophy behind The Pale Heart, aiming to create a sense of scale, danger, and ambition, which is integral to the game's narrative and player experience.

๐Ÿ’กSurreal

Surreal is used to describe the unexpected and dreamlike qualities of The Pale Heart. The script mentions using familiar elements out of context to create a sense of the surreal, such as replacing trees with hands, which adds to the unsettling and otherworldly atmosphere of the game.

๐Ÿ’กDread

Dread refers to a type of enemy in Destiny, created and altered by The Witness using the Light. The script explains that the Dread units speak a new language, the Pyramid language, which is translatable, adding depth to the game's lore and enemy design.

๐Ÿ’กHusks

Husks are a new type of enemy introduced in the game, characterized by their unique design and sound effects. The script describes the Husks as a serious and formidable addition to the game, with a design that evokes a sense of alien and otherworldly presence.

๐Ÿ’กStorytellers

Storytellers, in the context of the video, refer to the game developers and writers responsible for crafting the narrative of Destiny. The script discusses the challenges and processes storytellers face in creating a resonant and impactful story that honors the time and investment of the players.

Highlights

Guardians make their own fate - powerful theme of Destiny and for people as developers and humanity

Storytellers' challenge is knowing which ideas are important, not just coming up with them

Goal is to make players feel seen and give the experience they've been waiting for after investing time

Theme that resonated for Destiny and the story was purpose and fate

Emotional journey of characters, struggle to defeat The Witness

The Witness sees itself as the one true God, needs Traveler's Light to finish its vision

Players must prevent The Witness from getting the Light it needs

Players will speak to The Witness, which will shine a light on some things

The Pale Heart has themes of surreal and shire-to-spire, playing with scale and unexpected things

Surreal created by putting familiar things out of context

The Dread are a result of The Witness experimenting with the Light

The new Dread units speak a translatable Pyramid language

The Husks are a unique enemy with a two-in-one design and water bladder/jello sounds

Collaboration between disciplines and trust leads to better results than anyone could do individually

The story is about both the Guardian's journey and Destiny's journey evolving and going into the unknown

Confident in the love, work, and thoughtfulness put into the release, players will see it in the experience

Transcripts

00:03

And Tyson, take one marker.

00:06

There's a line that emerged in Destiny 1,

00:08

that wasn't planned for

00:09

but is very deliberate by the person who put it in the game.

00:11

And is very resonant for

00:13

Destiny players and resonant for me as a person.

00:16

And that line is

00:18

"Guardians make their own fate."

00:24

That still gives me goosebumps.

00:27

For me, that has sort of become a-

00:29

a touch point for the Destiny story.

00:33

Again and again,

00:35

external forces come and try to impose

00:37

a fate upon you and humanity.

00:42

And again and again,

00:44

you show them that they can't do that.

00:47

We make our own fate.

00:49

That's not just a powerful theme of Destiny.

00:52

It's also a powerful theme

00:53

for us as people.

00:54

As both developers and as humanity.

00:58

We make our own fate.

01:06

When you're talking about 10 years of story,

01:07

there's a lot of stuff crammed in there.

01:09

And there's a lot of things that we could do

01:11

and could talk about.

01:12

But as storytellers,

01:14

the hardest part isn't coming up with the ideas,

01:16

it's knowing which ones are the important ones.

01:19

We wanna tell a story

01:20

that makes you the player feel like

01:23

all of that time that you invested,

01:26

we saw you and we wanna give you the experience

01:29

that you've been waiting for.

01:31

We looked at everything we had.

01:33

We laid it all out like- Every single script-

01:35

whiteboards and like

01:36

everything. -Everywhere.

01:38

We were trying to look for

01:39

a theme that felt resonant,

01:41

not just for this story,

01:42

but for Destiny as a whole.

01:44

And the theme that we kept coming back to was

01:46

purpose and fate.

01:48

And that's what this story is about.

01:51

Not just for ourselves as the player,

01:53

but also for our characters.

01:55

I used to think

01:58

I'd give anything to bring you back.

02:00

I cried quite a few times

02:02

doing those scripts, because I-

02:04

I treated it with the love of a fan.

02:06

Every time I opened a script I was like,

02:08

"What would I want to see?

02:10

What would I want to hear?"

02:12

You get to see

02:14

their emotional journey.

02:15

The struggle of how do we defeat The Witness?

02:23

Let us bring an end

02:26

to your futile exertions.

02:29

The Witness sees itself

02:31

as the one true God.

02:34

So, it's come to The Traveler because it needs

02:35

the power of The Traveler's Light

02:37

to finish this vision.

02:39

Its goal is salvation,

02:42

"Why don't you want that?"

02:44

Be reborn.

02:46

Our mission is to make sure

02:48

that we can prevent it from getting the Light.

02:50

The thing that it needs in order to

02:53

make it all happen.

02:55

It's finally confronted The Traveler

02:58

and here we are, thorns in its side,

03:01

a blip on its radar,

03:02

trying to make a difference.

03:05

You're going to speak to The Witness,

03:07

and The Witness is going to

03:09

shine a light on some things.

03:11

And you wonder like, "What would it be like?

03:13

What would it be like to be a disciple of The Witness?"

03:16

Your Guardian's use has yet to be determined.

03:21

We're in need of a God killer.

03:25

Every time you hear The Witness,

03:26

you're not just hearing one voice,

03:27

you're hearing whispers in the background,

03:28

you're hearing all of these other textures.

03:30

You are still resisting.

03:34

You can feel a subtext sometimes

03:37

where the real Witness comes through,

03:39

or at least things that it doesn't want you to know

03:41

about it come through.

03:43

There is only suffering!

03:46

Putting characters into pressure cookers

03:48

is what storytellers do best.

03:50

And I can't imagine

03:52

a more intense pressure cooker

03:53

than it's the end of the world.

03:56

If we fail,

03:57

everything is frozen forever

03:59

and only we can do it.

04:01

It's just the handful of us

04:02

inside of a God.

04:09

There were a couple of themes

04:11

that we had when we started on The Pale Heart.

04:13

The two main ones that I remember

04:15

were surreal and shire-to-spire.

04:19

Seeing how they put a tiny little Guardian

04:22

at the beginning of this vast journey

04:24

that spreading out in front of you,

04:27

really put into perspective the scale

04:29

that we needed to hit

04:29

in order to make The Pale Heart

04:31

look and feel,

04:33

dangerous

04:34

and ambitious

04:36

and vast.

04:37

When we were thinking of surreal things,

04:39

it was a bit of a challenge.

04:41

Because how do you make something surreal?

04:43

For me, it is putting familiar things

04:46

out of context.

04:48

What is the thing

04:49

when you turn the corner

04:50

that you are not expecting?

04:52

So that's when we play with scale,

04:53

we play with unexpected things,

04:55

repetition.

04:57

There's this awesome

04:58

piece of concept art

04:59

that is like this massive Ghost in the horizon.

05:02

And you just like,

05:03

go over there and it's just like

05:05

broken down in the middle,

05:07

and it's just weird in a way that is

05:09

unsettling but at the same time

05:11

feels very visceral.

05:13

Another one that we used was

05:15

body parts.

05:16

And it sounds a bit strange,

05:19

because we didn't want to do body horror.

05:21

So I was taking screenshots from the game

05:24

and just trying to find silhouettes

05:26

and things that would look surreal.

05:28

And I start replacing all the trees with hands.

05:31

So all the limbs

05:32

we've made out of fingers coming out and

05:34

eyes were on the floor.

05:36

And I do remember

05:37

our direction was like that,

05:40

like more hands.

05:42

Are there hands holding up the freeway

05:44

in which we were born?

05:46

Yes.

05:48

You'll recognize it instantly

05:50

and then almost as quickly,

05:52

you'll realize you've never been here before.

05:55

I definitely feel like there's some aspects

05:57

of The Pale Heart where like,

05:58

this is freaking weird and scary.

06:01

I want to take that risk.

06:02

I want to push a little bit

06:04

of what expectations of what a destination can be.

06:06

And I hope that players love that.

06:08

As players progress,

06:10

they get to see more influence of The Witness,

06:13

not just on The Traveler,

06:14

but also on the races that it's interacted with

06:17

that we've seen so far.

06:21

The Dread are a result of The Witness

06:23

experimenting with the Light.

06:25

So while it's inside The Pale Heart,

06:27

it's able to access the Light

06:29

as it's trying to siphon it.

06:30

It is using that Light to create

06:32

and alter new and different combatants.

06:36

And so we've encountered

06:38

some of these members before.

06:40

Now we have an name for them.

06:41

The new Dread units are using a new language.

06:44

Collaborating with Narrative,

06:46

we went through and used this constructive language tool

06:49

to generate different phrases

06:51

to figure out like grammar structures and,

06:53

and other things.

06:54

The Pyramid language

06:55

that the new Dread units speak

06:58

is actually translatable.

06:59

So players, if they're really interested in

07:01

figuring out what the Pyramid units are saying,

07:04

could decipher these.

07:05

07:08

07:12

The Husks are an interesting addition to Destiny

07:15

because you've never fought anything like them before.

07:20

We talked about, oh yeah,

07:21

they need some big weapons like,

07:23

it needs to look like

07:25

this thing is serious business.

07:27

They wanted a bit of a secondary unit on it,

07:30

so like a, two in one.

07:32

As the sketches were progressing,

07:34

we were kind of like, oh,

07:35

this feels like it's sentient

07:37

And we just love the idea.

07:39

We had all these different sound effects in our library of

07:42

water bladders that make some really cool sounds

07:44

when you're shaking.

07:45

We use some sounds of slapping jello too.

07:50

So that was kind of the foundation for The Husk.

07:53

You have all these real physical sounds that

07:55

come together and feels like an alien

07:58

moving around in the stomach of this thing.

08:00

The collaboration between

08:03

the different disciplines

08:04

and the trust we have for each other.

08:06

At the end, it comes out better than

08:08

anybody could have made individually.

08:17

There's a moment where you realize

08:19

looking at The Final Shape,

08:20

that it's not just a story about the Guardian's journey.

08:22

It's also kind of the story of Destiny's journey.

08:25

It starts in place of uncertainty and challenge

08:28

and then it changes and evolves

08:30

and it proceeds forward into the unknown.

08:32

And as you get closer to The Final Shape,

08:34

those two experiences converge.

08:36

We know where we're going.

08:37

We know where we're aiming for.

08:40

I feel very confident about the love

08:42

and the work

08:43

and the thoughtfulness that everyone working

08:46

on this release put into it.

08:48

And I think it's inevitable

08:50

that when people start going in

08:52

and experiencing all these

08:54

different things that make up this expansion,

08:58

I think they're gonna see it.

08:59

I won't lose another soldier in this war.

Rate This
โ˜…
โ˜…
โ˜…
โ˜…
โ˜…

5.0 / 5 (0 votes)

Related Tags
Destiny LoreGuardian FateStorytellingEmotional ImpactGame NarrativeCharacter DevelopmentThe TravelerThe WitnessDread ForcesPyramid Language