Destiny is infamous for its alleged changes during development; most notably its story and the size of its playable worlds. Bungie designer Rob Adams has revealed that Destiny‘s largest space, Earth’s Cosmodrome, was actually supposed to be far bigger than it is in the final game.
During Bungie’s recent Cosmodrome ‘ride along’ video with the ‘Dads of Destiny’, Bungie staff members DeeJ and Rob Adams discussed the lore and history behind, while taking questions about, the Cosmodrome, as well as delving into parity and hardware issues.
One question in particular, by ‘Tinks’ at 59:05, asked if what Adams envisioned of the Cosmodrome in pre-production lined up with the final product, and if there was anything that didn’t make the cut.
“There’s a lot of stuff that didn’t make the cut. I think our original vision for this was something about five-to-ten times bigger, geographically, and our eyes were way bigger than our stomachs.”
With that goal in mind, the team started big and worked their way down, slowly condensing things in the Cosmodrome to achieve the perfect balance of adventure, social interaction, and action.
“We ended up condensing things to be closer and closer, and one of the biggest reasons we did that was we wanted players to see other players. And when you get a space that’s too big, you just don’t see anybody, it gets kind of empty and lonely. And the other problem is, we have a limit to the number of combatants we can have in a space at any one time.”
Since Destiny released, players have pleaded for more, or even larger versions of existing, locations to explore, given that’s part of what makes the Destiny universe so interesting and exciting. Adams suggested that we may see a shift towards Bungie’s original vision for Destiny in the future, after they have more time with the engine and the Xbox One and PlayStation 4.
“There’s a part of me that wishes we could have five times as many players in a space, and have three-to-five times the real estate, it’s just a matter of working with the engine and working with the consoles over time to try to get closer to that dream.”
Given their recent discussion on cross-gen parity, this last point drives home the importance of becoming used to, and taking full advantage of, next-gen hardware. Hopefully we can look forward to more of this original vision in a Destiny sequel.