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Bungie cites “logistical reasons” for awkward Destiny 2 story loop

The Destiny 2 story loop for Season of Defiance takes players down an unusual path in the FPS game, but a Bungie dev claims it's due to "logistical reasons."

Bungie cites "logistical reasons” for awkward Destiny 2 story loop: Mara Sov speak with the Guardian in the EDZ.

The Destiny 2 story loop for Season of the Defiant takes an unusual trajectory, often forcing players between multiple locations for no apparent reason to progress the seasonal quest content. The FPS game‘s unusual seasonal story loop prompted a response from Bungie regarding frustration with a storyline structure that repeatedly takes players to the H.E.L.M. and then the Farm to talk to holoprojector representations of characters, sometimes even in cases where the characters are present in the vicinity.

A Reddit thread, titled “Bungie, all I ask is that you have one person, just ONE person, play straight through your season and ask them how it went” and upvoted more than 4,000 times, prompted a reply from the official BNGHelp Reddit account attributed to Bungie team members working in an official capacity.

The unnamed developer, who specified they’re on “a different team” than the Destiny2Team account that generally handles community affairs, said player frustrations around the gameplay loop could be attributed to “logistical reasons.”

Bungie cites "logistical reasons” for awkward Destiny 2 story loop: Devrim Kay on a holoprojector.

“Sometimes it’s how the quest was built as part of the overall gameplay loop and it’s incredibly hard after the fact to change it, such as in Season of the Forge where you had to visit Ada multiple times,” the BNGHelp account shares. “And other times it’s due to time or budgetary constraints. Full vendor performances take up much more time and budget to create than an upper torso performance in the holoprojector or just a voice recording.”

The developer then continues by suggesting holoprojector performances can’t always be set to the same holoprojector without causing other issues. They also clarify that the game has numerous gameplay testers who play through the content many times but asserts it’s not always possible to incorporate feedback due to factors such as production schedules.

The criticism surrounding the gameplay loop comes in the aftermath of players’ mixed reception of Lightfall and at a time when Destiny 2 is experiencing an abundance of issues due to server crashing, with some veteran players even calling on the developers to start fresh with Destiny 3.

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While it’s seemingly impossible for Bungie to address every issue, its decision to address this issue in particular sheds light on the challenges of production processes, particularly as they relate to a live service multiplayer game committed to continually bringing players fresh content.

Players looking to wrap up the Destiny 2 season 20 storyline have just a few more weeks to do so before Destiny 2 season 21 launches with a questline designed to help explain the significance of The Veil in Bungie’s popular game.