If you prefer a video version of this story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LI3Z6BmARKM&t=8s It’s no secret that something went wrong with destiny’s story behind the scenes. Almost 2 Years before Destiny’s release in September 2014, Joseph Staten Destiny’s lead Writer and Design Director presented the story to Bungie Upper Management in a 2 Hour Supercut of the game. Ultimately, they were unhappy with the narrative of the game saying it was too linear and would overhaul and rework the games narrative from scratch, ultimately becoming the game we know today. It’s no surprise that many fans wished they got the original story, or at least something a bit better than was delivered. And today we’re going to take a look at what just might be that Original Version of Destiny created by Joseph Staten and his team. This original story was outlined in a very cliff notes fashion by someone who supposedly playtested destiny before the overhaul, (show pic of reddit post with credit to redditor) so take everything with a little pinch of salt. The Crow ends up being reintroduced earlier on in the story in the place of the exo stranger. The story revolved around discovering that there was something wrong with the speaker and the traveler. As a guardian you were abducted by this yet to be named group led by the crow. During the second mission on earth he swooped down and knocked you out and brought you to this secret base on mars. There you met with some guardians that abandoned the traveler, the speaker, and the light. It was led by Crow, the Exo Stranger (who the writer makes note in this version was male but maintained more or less the same personality) and one or two guardians who lost their ghosts. He goes on to say “It had this predictable plot where the traveler was the cause of the collapse of the golden age because this group found out through their travels that the darkness was a spawn of the traveler rather than its rival. Essentially when the traveler was brought to earth it unleashed the darkness and took over the majority of the technology that humanity used, turned it against them and nearly wiped it out. As that happened centuries ago the truth was twisted through the speakers that the traveler protected earth in its darkest moment rather than destroying it. They send you to venus to lure out a gatekeeper and steal its core which supposedly held an AI that could help bring the truth to light about the traveler and the speaker to the citizens of the City. Around this point I recall going to mars to retrieve the remains of another powerful AI that the cabal was repurposing for their own use. Then at the end of that mission the test group was sent about 10 hours further into the game where we assaulted a hive base on the moon. After the group discovered from an AI that the hellmouth was a housing for a super weapon that could revive the traveler from it’s dormant state so it could wreak havoc on the Humanity again. And that’s all we have from this person who supposedly playtested destiny before the overhaul. A lot of this lines up with things mentioned in a kotaku article that dives deep into what happened behind the scenes during development for destiny. In the article it touches on a few more important details that would be in the original version of destiny. For instance, this guy right here from the concept art was to be Rasputin, (although later revealed in a dlc that this exo was being controlled by a warmind.) You would have to save this exo from the hive who had kidnapped him and taken him to their dreadnaught. The same dreadnaught we would see released later in the taken king. It was said that the entire last third of the main game took place on the dreadnaught. And we’ve seen the dreadnaught in a few trailers before destiny released supporting this even more. Osiris played a more major role in the original version of destiny as well and was described as an Obi-Wan Kenobi-like mentor that lived on an ancient vex temple on mercury. Osiris was like a guide for the player who had an assistant that we would come to know as the exo stranger. This clip from the released version always sounded like she was speaking with Osiris to me. (show clip) Other small details were made like The Crow originally having a similar personality to what we got with cayde-6, Charlemagne a warmind on mars, and descriptions of Major 3-5-minute Cutscenes at the end of every single story mission. I gotta say I really do wish we could play the original version of Destiny from start to finish because it sounded like it was going to be really great. Don’t get me wrong though, destiny has some story elements and lore that I’ve loved since it’s release, I like prince uldren’s character as we know him today and what we got with oryx and rise of iron content, but other characters have been treated embarrassingly bad outside of the lore. Characters like Osiris, Rasputin, and various other lore legends like Ana Bray. For that reason, I’d really love to playout the original version of the game and experience some of these characters the way they were intended to be and how they were written. Destiny 1’s story and original vision to this day is the one that intrigues me the most and it’s a shame we’ll never see that original script for the game. However, the story and deep lore we did get throughout destiny’s first 3 years were honestly pretty incredible and I like to pretend we haven’t progressed the story past rise of iron. Pre-Destiny 2 Destiny is what I love and what I consider to be canon in my head. To me Destiny 2 and all of its story content besides forsaken have been not only underwhelming, but completely destroying any sense of mystery, wonder, or intrigue by retconning so much of the excellent deep lore from destiny 1. So when I put destiny 2 out of my memory, that’s when I continue to love the destiny universe and the beautiful lore found inside.