Destiny 2 developer Bungie has outlined some of its new design philosophy when crafting the new Witch Queen expansion’s enemies.
Bungie has promised that Destiny fans will feel the “level of terror that [Fallen] Captains have felt since way back in the Cosmodrome” in the game’s next expansion, The Witch Queen.
In a lengthy new interview with Gamespot, Destiny general manager Justin Truman discussed the turning of the tables that new Hive Guardians bring to Destiny 2, allowing enemies to wield the kind of abilities players have unleashed since 2014.
“We’ve had, I feel like, years in the lore and in the storytelling of just the idea of the Fallen, the Cabal, even in their own way, the Hive, just being kind of terrified of the idea of one of these immortal Guardians dropping in and wrecking house,” Truman explained.
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“And we wanted to turn that around and be like, ‘What happens if you’re the one feeling that level of terror that [Fallen] Captains have felt since way back in the Cosmodrome?'”
Witch Queen expansion will offer a “definitive Destiny campaign” to Destiny 2
Joe Blackburn, assistant game director on Destiny 2, explained that Hive Guardians, Witch Queen’s new enemy type, are intended to feel like a miniboss or Champion.
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“What’s it like to fight someone that feels like you? How powerful are they? I think, to give you some Destiny parallels in what we talk about, a Hive Guardian feels like a miniboss. It feels like a Champion. It feels like something that you would never want to fight a full room of. That would be incredibly overwhelming, so we start you off fighting one, maybe later in the campaign, you have to fight two at once, something you’re like, ‘Oh my God, this feels like a lot.'”
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Elsewhere in the interview, Blackburn explains how the team “wants to keep blurring the lines” between aspirational and campaign content, noting that Season of the Lost currently offers some activities that err closer to a Metroidvania than a traditional shooter.
“We want to keep blurring that line so that eventually, when you’re playing through the campaigns, it feels like we’re stepping you into this content. And even in the early stuff, in the Witch Queen campaign and these missions we talked about, we said, ‘Hey, this is going to be the definitive Destiny campaign.'”
The full interview is well worth a read, also noting how the team drew inspiration from the likes of True Detective for the expansion’s swampy aesthetic.
