Even as Bungie’s widely successful first-person shooter made quite the splash during its September launch, few have been able to deny the lack-luster nature of Destiny’s narrative, even up through its first big content update, ‘The Dark Below,’ released back in December. Recent evidence however, may point to Bungie working to rectify the problem. John Ryan, a writer on AreanaNet’s popular MMO Guild Wars 2, took to twitter to say that this week will be his first at Bungie as “their new editor/loremaster.”
While neither title is necessarily ‘writer,’ Destiny’s lore could use a degree of touch-up. At present the main location of the game’s lore is through a codex-like system of ‘grimoire cards’ that, while unlocked through playing the game, are only accessible to read either on the game’s website or in its companion app. Even if Bungie is looking at something as simple as bringing these short paragraphs of world-building into the game itself, that can only be good news for Destiny as a whole.
According to his LinkedIn page, Mr. Ryan worked at ArenaNet for over five years, where he “created lore, NPCs, narrative, original fiction, and dialogue” for Guild Wars 2. He also “wrote narrative VO and text for multiple Living World projects,” and even “spearheaded the creation of lore, NPCs, story, and dialogue for [Guild Wars 2’s recently announced] Heart of Thorns expansion.” Before that he was an Associate Producer at Xbox Live.
As for what effect his hiring will have on Destiny, we’ll just have to wait and see. The game’s next big content update, ‘House of Wolves,’ is set to hit sometime this year.