Yes, it's another rant post. It's mine. Lets get it over with. First off, who am I. To answer: nobody special. Played halo, but wasn't an avid gamer. Didn't try for the top of the leaderboads, haven't been playing for an eon or two, don't have the weight of six billion hours of WoW under my belt. Literally made this account a couple months ago when destiny first came out so I could interact with the community. Which I feel it's time for. Come along with me guardians, on a journey.... "I think if you look at what we're trying to achieve with Destiny, we're basically putting out an IP that we believe is going to be around for an awful long time," (Roy) Stackhouse said. "We've focused on making it very immersive--both in the campaign and in the multiplayer--and we've already announced the first expansion pack that's on it's way this year. We view this as an IP we want in the market for a very long time." [url]http://www.gamespot.com/articles/on-launch-day-activision-says-destiny-will-be-arou/1100-6422204/[/url] This was Roy Stackhouse, Activision general manager for Ireland and the UK, around release day. Now, we're not going to bash on him, but we are going to take it as Activision's statement: "We've focused on making it very immersive--both in the campaign and in the multiplayer...". What? ... Where? Hold on, let me go remake my titan and play through ten cutscenes. Give me a minute. Okay, we're back. Still missed it. Was it between the start mission and end mission? Because if it wasn't, just tell me so I can go find it. I'd love to find some pull-me-back-in story missions somewhere. Welcome to Destiny. A game with a budget so grandiose that it boasts content for ten years. An entire decade. The game that has such an immersive story, ten years of my life are actually going to be realtime ten years in game. Is that how this works? Because I'm not seeing counter arguments. If it is, let me be clear: That's not what I want in a game. Okay, that wasn't consturctive criticism at all. Lets refocus then: I said ten cutscenes. Ten. Lets play that out. (HERE BE SPOILERS) Intro, Humans find the Traveler. In Soviet Russia, Ghost finds you Will it fly? Meeting the speaker: Think he likes ya You may want to back up Mystery Lady 3000 The Awoken The Awoken Two: Heads will roll Well there's your problem Good job, here's a pulse rifle. FIN. What? Where was my immersive story? It's not all bad, granted. The banter between ghost and your guardian after meeting the Vex got an actual laugh out of me. Delivering "Your grace" with an undertone 'yeah, I understood her the first time you goram idiot' felt amazing. I felt actual chills when dinklebot asked where the titan's ghost was. That was storytelling. There was fear, not of an enemy, but of the dark. Of the unknown. He felt very human, and I connected with him. No sarcasm this time, great scene guys. So you can do humor, you can do serious, you can tell stories just with glances and voice inflection. So now all you need is to build a world, put some characters in, find a story, let players interact with it, sit back and watch. Immersion! Characters: Awesome. Got some faces I already don't like, some with a mystery I want to know more about, some with agendas I need to be wary of. What's our story? "Well, we've got this big darkness pushing us to the brink of extinction, so we're gonna fight it." Awesome. What's our first move? "We need to repair the traveler, so we're going to figure out what's wrong, and try to fix it." That's the big floating ball in the sky, yeah? Okay, I'm following now. We figure out what's wrong? "Yeah, these jerks are draining its life energy, we need to take 'em out." Okay, we did that. What's next? "...Nothin'. We got some more stuff we need to look into, but we're good for now." But I thought this darkness pushed almost centuries of exploration and expansion back in an instant? Isn't there more we can- "THAT'S A WRAP FOLKS. BUY DLC IF YOU WANT MORE!" I'm just going to skip "who are you and why do you have superpowers" when you get zapped back to life, (it's a video game i'll give it some leeway) but we'll come back to this. Lastly: The background. The setting. Bungie's stage. So, Destiny is a different type of game, so we're stepping away from what we usually do. Instead, we'll want to introduce our characters, get the ball rolling a little bit, then build the world around them. So...lets see....okay, we're going to do step-into-fantasy landscapes, full body contact music scores, with backstory and lore for the truly hungry. Let the players know about the world they're stepping into, who lives in it and why they're worth saving. We'll let the music set the mood and tone, tell them when something big is happening. Annnnnd then I think we'll just let the story drive so hard their pants feel funny, make 'em come back for more. Most people build the world first, but we're trying something different. The thing is, Bungie, it works. Your concept works. You can build the background around us. Your music speaks stories in and of itself. These enemies are going to hurt because the music said so. The environments let me know that yes, Old russia was filled with people trying to get out and yes, these astronauts did die alone on the moon, looking out at the void. But where is my backstory? Where is Lord Shaxx's story? He's obviously a badass, he's taller than every titan alive. Why is this exo a weapons expert? Is the cryptarch just one heavily invested historian, or does he represent an order or society? Because if you are trying to make an immersive story, as Activision said; If you focused on making this world something I would come back to again and again, for ten years; If this is the world you wanted to show me, the game you always wanted to make; Where is my backstory and lore. Because if you say it is on a website: You fail. You fail at an understanding of immersive gaming, you fail at an understanding of your audience, you fail at a personal level, for me. Not that one gamer's voice means much. And your story. It's good (save that last cutscene, that was a bit hard to swallow), but it's not enough. "But!," I hear arguments, "it's got dinklebot telling you the story between every mission! And he interacts with you during patrol and even during those story missions!" Yeah? So did Cortana. In Halo one. Which shipped with around 30 background development cutscenes, on top of her talking to you, as opposed to Destiny's ten. [url]http://halo.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_Halo:_Combat_Evolved_Cinematic_Cutscenes[/url] This is not to say Destiny doesn't have more coming. Maybe I don't even have to buy the DLC to face the darkness again. But Halo one, the game that really put bungie on the map (at least to my mind), shipped with a complete story. This isn't one. Video games were designed to tell stories, using pictures as their medium. It was a step up from imagining what characters looked like in books, or what someone could impart on you telling a ghost story. Immersive gaming was designed to bring you into the game world, make you feel what the characters did. This is not immersive storytelling. This is not even good storytelling. Maybe if your name is Activision. But not if your name is Bungie. tl;dr: I'm angry about the story and here is my rant.