‘Destiny’: Bungie Talks About Building Worlds


Destiny developer Bungie opened up on building worlds in their new videogame epic.

After years of Halo and its extensions and sequels, Bungie has decided to take a bold step out of the Halo franchise. Art director Christopher Barrett alongside writer and design director Joe Staten of Bungie spoke in retrospect with GameSpot’s Eddie Makuch about the progress of Destiny thus far.

When asked about their inspirations for Destiny, Christopher Barrett and Joe Staten stated their sources ranged from paintings to science fiction novels. Barrett said he was fond of the idea of mixing genres, from classic barbarian mythos to Star Wars, and focusing on the timelessness of paintings. Staten claimed science fiction and fantasy literature as other influences, and as for the Halo series, they looked at movies a lot. For inspiration regarding Destiny, the Bungie staff looked at popular TV series such as Lost and Battlestar Galactica. They were going for the ongoing series feel.

On brainstorming with a crew of over 400 employees, Joe Staten said Bungie had to be careful not to get too carried away with any one idea, as it would be too easy to go diving too deep into anyone’s own rabbit hole. To go too far would inadvertently create a set of rules that someone would believe shouldn’t be messed with, so the idea was to keep everything as open as possible.

Christopher Barrett and Joe Staten said the consistency in Destiny was extremely important. Every aspect had to be connected to everything else, and to change one thing could end up in a ripple effect with major consequences. Every line of dialogue and every description had to coincide. Staten said it was really hard not to create a story bible. Barrett said that even things that were set in stone earlier have evolved to encompass a larger ideal.

Joe Staten said it was absolutely necessary to ensure that some characters in Destiny were noticeably shady while others were definite heroes. Technically, building the world of Destiny was like creating the world of a series of novels.

What do you think of what Bungie had to say about building the world of Destiny?

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