[GameSpot] - Destiny 2 Has A Lot Of Seasonal Story Backtracking For A (Mostly Technical Limitations) Reason

[343iBot]

Seasonal missions in Destiny 2 generally have a predictable cycle, as each weekly adventure involves bullets and backtracking. Typically, these missions will require players to head to several locations for a debriefing, usually with one of the main Destiny 2 characters at their usual location or through a holoprojector located in a different social hub. This has been a point of contention for some players, but as Bungie explained, this particular gameplay loop is necessary due to budgetary and technical constraints.

"There are logistical reasons why this happens. Sometimes it's how the quest was built as part of the overall gameplay loop and its incredibly hard after the fact to change it, such as in Season of the Forge where you had to visit Ada multiple times," Bungie explained on Reddit. "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."

While several fans have complained about how Season of Defiance required jumping between the HELM and Farm social hubs for weekly chats with in-game characters, Bungie explained that this was done as both locations are important to the seasonal story and a technical issue related to the holoprojector. "The main reason is because certain performances are hooked up at each holoprojector and we can’t put them all in the same place without other issues occurring," Bungie said.

The studio added that it has gameplay specialists who who play through the content prior to release and provide feedback for the studio, but sometimes it can't act on that advice for various reasons, such as production schedules. This ties into Bungie's philosophy about delivering content, as during a 2022 GDC panel, the studio revealed how it adapted to the demands of live-service games with a ship first, fix later mentality that would allow it to deliver a constant flow of seasonal content. The Destiny 2 community has noted that lately the game appears to be in an even buggier state than usual, as many items in the game have felt broken and severs have gone down frequently.

In more Destiny 2 news, a mid-season update has introduced some big changes to several weapon archetypes, more accessibility improvements are coming in Season of the Deep, and one player has managed to solo the Root of Nightmares raid without dying a single time.

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