5 Destiny-Adjacent Things I’d Enjoy
People have asked me in person, so here are five things I would buy or make to expand the transmedia footprint of the Destiny universe.
Hard-copy Grimoire
A book that collects the first game’s Grimoire, perhaps with a look back at the making of Destiny and its world beyond the initial art book. Show us art from the design and development of The Taken King and Rise of Iron. Share with us some of the design decisions that went into the stories, quests, and missions of the game. I’m imagining something that blends retrospective making-of content with something like The Dunwall Archives of Dishonored.
Fiction
What about a serialized novel or short-story series, maybe first released as ebooks. Tell us stories about parts of the universe outside the scope of my Guardian’s adventures. Help us experience tales that convey the Destiny worlds but might not make great game missions. This kind of direct prose could be a winning counterpart to the flash-fiction vignettes of the Grimoire. Personally, I’d prefer short fiction for this—thrilling and enlightening adventures rather than world-shaking epics—but I bet the solar system is big enough to contain both.
A Tabletop Game
My first instinct is a tabletop roleplaying game, of course, because I am an RPG fan. That game could be another way to convey some of the adventures and excitement of Guardians beyond the time we spend shooting at things (which a tabletop game won’t do better than the shooter game anyway). A fully app-supported Destiny RPG that interacts with Destiny 2’s database of lore and legends? Yes, please. But maybe I’m wrong and the better fit is a board game about the various factions at play in Destiny and Destiny 2. How do they help keep humanity alive? A worker-placement game feels like a strange counterpart to the FPS, but it could be great at things that the shooter game isn’t meant to do well.
Interactive Fiction App
A mix of fiction and play might be just the right way to keep Destiny focused on gameplay while expanding and deepening its reservoir of fiction. Maybe it’s as simple as a handsome Twine game (I taught myself Twine by writing a short story in which you play a Ghost trying to keep your Guardian alive) or maybe it’s an animated graphic-novel on the tablet, with voices and music. The works. I’d give either a shot.
A Cryptarch Mobile Game
Consider a mobile game about cryptarchs and others exploring Golden Age ruins and discovering lore and objects and treasures with little stories attached. This could draw on the kind of gear models already at work in the game, merged with little mini-games to decrypt engrams or identify objects in the style of the modern Tomb Raider games. Perhaps this mobile game might unlock cheap consumables or emblems for my Guardian if I discover or decrypt enough treasures.
