Destiny 2: How Bungie Injects Horror In Season Of The Haunted

In the now seventeenth season of Destiny 2 we must face the nightmares aboard Calus Leviathan. With a scythe we can “harvest” these dark beings. Otherwise, the season of the haunted is peppered with many horror elements. The design and narrative teams spoke about these topics in an interview.

A pinch of horror for the Season of the Haunted

It’s not the first time Bungie has incorporated horror elements into Destiny 2, says Tom Farnsworth, the studio’s creative lead. An effective way to make the game scarier is to take away some of the players’ power and make them feel like they’re not up to the task – but at the same time give them a fair chance, for example through a certain one Enemy movement and attack patterns.

In Season 17 we see this quite well with the example of the rampaging cabal in, which appears in some missions and which turns a fairly simple task into an annoying undertaking. He runs after you and kills you with a few hits, but cannot be injured or killed himself. In order not to die, you must always keep moving and flee from the massive troublemaker.

Rob Adams, Destiny 2 Art Director, adds that visual aspects such as sound, lighting, technical design, story and environment design also play a big role.

Battle against the ghosts of the past

The story told in Season 17 may not necessarily be scary for the players, but it is for the characters. Because they have to face their past ghosts and fears. The theme of mental health is thus brought up in the season and is a theme that both adds to the somber atmosphere and draws attention to it.

During the development of the current season, Robert Brookes, the team’s senior narrative designer, noticed in particular how important it can be to process topics such as trauma management in a video game. You can show these things in a safe way, with some distance between your feelings and the feelings of the characters on screen.

Shame, doubt, or sadness are feelings that everyone has struggled with at some point, says Nikko Stevens, also a senior narrative designer at Bungie. These ghosts of the past should not be defeated with brute force. The three characters need help to face their personal demons, just like other people do. How to approach such a trauma is illustrated by the various stories told in Season of the Haunted.

When the Keepers become the Grim Reaper

For the nightmares that were reawakened in Season 17, however, the Guardians take up arms. A dream-coping strategy will certainly not help here. But a scythe, which is unpacked in certain activities. I asked Stevens how the team came up with the idea of ​​the scythe. It seems the designers quickly came to an agreement on this matter.

“When we start planning a season, we have a lot of brainstorming and concept meetings and things like that where we’re exchanging ideas. We kind of have a central thematic pillar that we build around,” Stevens said. One thing that was clear from the first meeting was the scythe. “I mean, if we’re the grim reaper of nightmares, then we’re going to have a scythe. Right. And it came out right away in those meetings. And it’s stuck.”

According to Stevens, everyone was “on board right away” and the scythe would become the focal point of the season. “And I know that at some point after one of those brainstorming sessions, Rob came up and came up with a concept of what the scythe would look like. From then on, everyone wanted to put the weapon in, no matter what the cost.” Players should become the Grim Reaper. One that even the nightmares fear.