‘Destiny 2’ Picks Up ‘Mass Effect: Andromeda’ Lead Writer

Destiny fans have a new writer to follow. Mass Effect: Andromeda lead writer Christopher Schlerf announced Monday evening he has left BioWare to join Bungie, where he will undoubtedly be working on Destiny 2 for PlayStation and Xbox.

Schlerf’s announcement came as a surprise, as he had stayed off of Twitter since the start of August, 2015. However, he came back with a bang that has the Destiny community buzzing. First, came the revelation that he is leaving Bioware.

“To confirm what some folks asked about a few months back, I am no longer working on [ Mass Effect: Andromeda ] at BioWare Montreal,” Sclerf announced on Twitter.

“Think Mass Effect: Andromeda is really gonna blow people away; couldn’t be prouder to be part of it, and excited like a lil’ kid to play the final [game] when it’s out,” he added.

Then he dropped the bomb of where he was headed to next.

All that said, very happy to be back in Seattle, working with this scrappy little company called Bungie that some of you may have heard of.

— schlerf (@schlerf) February 16, 2016

Think we might have some interesting stories to tell…

— schlerf (@schlerf) February 16, 2016

For those curious, Schlerf did not work on the original Mass Effect trilogy. He was a writer at 343 Industries working on Halo 4 prior to joining BioWare. The movement from one project to another is not particularly surprising as writers, artists, and developers typically move on from a game or even a studio once their work is completed.

Schlerf’s Twitter profile was also updated to confirm that he is, indeed, working on Destiny. Bungie recently laid out its roadmap for the franchise that includes a large spring update to the game followed by an all new expansion in the fall. Meanwhile, the release of Destiny 2 has been pushed to 2017.

The large free update scheduled for the spring will bring a significant Light level increase, along with new weapons, armor, and gear. Bungie also promised new challenges for PvE players with opportunities for replayability. It’s currently unclear if “new challenges” means new content for the game, or bringing more content up from the Year One, or adding challenge modes to the Vault of Glass and The Dark Below raids or a mixture of the three. Expect Bungie to begin slow-rolling a reveal out over the coming weeks.

Details on the large expansion for Destiny planned later this year have not been revealed. Leaked contracts and release schedules for the game previously pegged the fall 2016 as the release for a sequel to the online shooter. However, a number of challenges arose over the course of the first two years of Destiny ‘s release that caused Bungie to abandon the DLC schedule that was used during Year One.

Destiny Year Two, so far, has been small updates to the game with free events such as Sparrow Racing and Crimson Doubles supported by microtransactions. The reaction from the game’s community has been growing impatience in search of reasons to continue returning week after week.

The announcement of Schlerf working on Destinyhas brought energy to the game’s community, with one Reddit threadexploding with discussion about what it means for the future of the series. The original launch of Destinywas highly criticized for a seemingly shallow story, with the bulk of the universe’s interesting lore buried in Grimoire cards only accessible outside of the game. This was due in part to a delay and complete retooling of the game that saw the original story cut out and a long-time Bungie veteran depart.

Destiny: The Taken King was a big improvement, story-wise, as it brought characters such as Cayde out from the background and had an actual story arc for players to follow. There’s still much more lore and many other characters for Schlerf and the rest of the team at Bungie to utilize, however. So it will be interesting to see what direction future installments take.