We started interacting with the characters more. PD: During Season of the Chosen, there was obviously a huge shift in the storytelling mechanism of Destiny. Go back into that deep well of creative opportunities that go into a place like the Dreaming City and utilising Awoken technology and talking about Awoken culture. We really wanted to lean on the sci-fi fantasy aspect of the game with Season of the Lost. The other thing we think a lot about too is, ‘What are the different player fantasies or experiences we’re trying to build for each season?’ So if Season of the Chosen is a little more swords and sandals, ritualistic combat, Season of the Splicer is a little bit more hacking into the Vex network, becoming a splicer. It was also a great opportunity to return to the Dreaming City and feature an entire season around that. We’ve been hinting at Mara’s return for a very, very long time and when we were developing it was like, ‘What is the essential prologue to the Witch Queen? What’re the pieces we need to get us to the point where Savathûn has a Lucent brood, a Light-infused brood?’ How do we get there? We actually felt that Mara Sov was one of the best ways to get us there. The same is true for Season of the Lost with Mara and the Dreaming City. The Cabal empire is massive and so we wanted to talk about that. Them trying to crash the Almighty into the Last City during Season of the Worthy – it’s kind of like the last big gasp in terms of an organised force. So for instance, Caiatl, who you were poking at a little bit earlier, we as a group really wanted to talk about what’s happening with the Cabal and the Red Legion because they are effectively defunct at that point. RS: Yeah, and from the world evolution side, and how we go about choosing where we’re featuring or who we’re talking about, like Nikko is discussing… a lot of it comes down to us analysing the threads we’ve been pulling on for a few years now, since Destiny has been around for over seven years as a game with Destiny 1 and Destiny 2. So, this super close hand-off and linkage is something that we’ve been engineering over the course of these seasons and leading up into Witch Queen. Then at the very beginning of season 15 we pick up with the Vanguard sending us on a mission to apprehend Osiris for his crimes against the City. At the end of Season of the Splicer, we see Osiris is abandoning the city and he’s retreating from this Vex attack that Lakshmi and Osiris have orchestrated on the city. You can kind of see that most evidently in the handoff between Season of the Splicer in Season of the Lost. So, this season, Season of the Lost, was built under the mindset of it being a prologue for the Witch Queen and tying in the stories of the past seasons with that transition into this new year of the Witch Queen. NS: So, I think one of the reasons for that is we’ve been building this evolving singular story across our seasonal releases, that are punctuated by these annual releases like Beyond Light and Witch Queen coming up.
![where to find metro shift shader destiny 2 where to find metro shift shader destiny 2](https://64.media.tumblr.com/96b6324038bfc2f4eb3e7d899107f46c/tumblr_pu1him6qj41xhc75ko1_1280.jpg)
Why was it the time to say, ‘Alright, we have to wrap up…’ Or not wrap up but get back to the Dreaming City, as it were? We have this Cabal Empress out there in the universe’. PD: What’s interested me about this year is how you guys are choosing which pockets to go and explore. That goes for the story of Season of the Lost, the whole year in retrospect, hints to where the Destiny universe is heading, and a certain Hive god sister… but not that one.
![where to find metro shift shader destiny 2 where to find metro shift shader destiny 2](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/wMd6Huajks8/maxresdefault.jpg)
![where to find metro shift shader destiny 2 where to find metro shift shader destiny 2](https://i.redd.it/9cuxauj3x4q41.jpg)
With that in mind, we sat down with senior narrative designer Nikko Stevens and assistant game director Robbie Stevens to talk about everything narrative. It’s been the best year for narrative in the Destiny universe and you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who would disagree. Things changed further this year with Season of the Chosen, a new social space and story delivery system that has players interacting with characters, it has made the world and characters feel even more tangible.