Destiny 2’s Archie the dog has become the FPS game‘s most controversial character after a satirical post analyzing Bungie’s development process regarding the Destiny 2 robo-pup garnered over 6,000 upvotes.
It’s a twist of irony that the fan-favourite pooch is now the centre of a major discussion regarding the game’s overall development process, considering it was nothing but a good boi since its brief appearance in Destiny 2 season 19.
The post titled “The development of Archie the dog is a satirical microcosm of Bungie’s content release process” is marked satire, though it clearly resonated with players frustrated with the game’s recent bugs, server issues, and overall content development process.
The post from Redditor WiseScratch suggests that whereas in most other games, developers who wanted to include a dog within the game would have just introduced a dog, Bungie’s developers instead introduced its exo-dog with a time-gated mission, a lengthy grind, and managed to put it into the game world with buggy mechanics.
“We’ve written a lengthy article describing how we coded the dog, why we coded the dog, and how enormously clever we are for being able to code a dog in the first place,” the author adds, speaking from a satirical position as a Bungie development team member. The kicker, however, is the post’s sign-off:
“As it doesn’t have anything to do with Gambit, the dog will be mentioned in every TWAB,” the author writes, a response to Bungie’s overall silence regarding any updates to the Gambit game mode and its future as a core activity in the multiplayer game. While Bungie has recently overhauled Vanguard Strikes and Nightfalls and tried to balance activities like Crucible and Trials of Osiris, the team has not shared any updates regarding Gambit or its future.
In an edit, the post’s author notes they were added to r/ControversialClub on Reddit, a private community where “Each hour, the author of the most controversial post on Reddit is added as an approved submitter to this subreddit.”
While the Destiny 2 community is rarely hesitant to share its feedback regarding issues within the game ranging from bugs or overall problems with the narrative arc, this sentiment behind this post seemed to strike a chord with players in light of criticism around the Lightfall narrative, outages, and a host of other issues recent woes.
However, even these issues have not stopped players from playing Destiny 2 season 20, as Steam Charts reports the game boasted its peak player count of 316,651 on the platform with the launch of Lightfall in late February and continues to average about 79,487 players, up from about 38,159 in November 2022.
Archie, whose name is short for Archangel, is just one of many things players can look forward to in Destiny 2 season 21, as Bungie has already promised the doggo would return in the game in the upcoming season. However, with Season of the Deep rapidly approaching, players should get their hands on all the recent Destiny 2 Lightfall Exotics to ensure they have everything they need to take on the forthcoming season with their best boy at their side.