[Gamescom 2017] Interview with David Dague and Justin Truman from Bungie on Destiny 2!

During the Gamescom in Cologne held and concluded last week, our Gianluigi "Jan-Meister" Crescenzi had the honor of interviewing two members of the crew of Bungie, on the occasion of the imminent release of the house title Destiny 2, highly anticipated by millions of fans. Our microphones have arrived David Dague (Bungie Community Manager) e Justin Truman (Gameplay Lead). The two were immediately likeable and decidedly open to dialogue, willingly accepting some exchange between one question and another.

We are here after three years of Destiny. You have created a great community around this game and I feel part of this community, I love it. What do you expect from the future of this community?

David: We all expect and hope to have the same great interaction and the same kind of shared experiences. These were Bungie's intentions from the start, to create games that nurture bonds and friendships. The game is something we love and work hard for, but the community is the real product of our hard work, it's the end result of this sharing experience. With the launch of Destiny 2 on PC we are delighted to be able to welcome many more players from all over the world to the community. We try to broaden and diversify the community, in order to enlarge it and create more variety in the co-op game.

Justin: What gratifies me the most about working on Destiny is seeing players befriend each other as they play. I am lucky enough to work with Bungie and many of our people who work on the game also play it, but the best thing is to meet someone even by chance, play them for a while, become friends after a few weeks even if they live a thousand miles away. distance. It is always great.

Destiny lands on PC for the first time. How did your collaboration with Blizzard start?

David: We worked closely with Blizzard to make sure the experience of playing Destiny on PC was great. We wanted it to be a useful and wonderful experience. Our developers worked hand in hand with the Blizzard team. They are people I have worked with to primarily support players and speak directly to the community. We know that the Blizzard community expects the best of the best and will ask for nothing less. So we've been working with our new Blizzard friends to make sure we're releasing a game worthy of them.

Justin: It was an incredible collaboration with Blizzard. I am honored to be part of the first non-Blizzard game to land on Battle.net. We worked with the team to make sure we at Bungie are doing our best on both console and PC build. Blizzard helped us improve the game by giving us some helpful feedback.

David: Our community is very collaborative. Not only will there be new players, but I think a lot of Destiny fans will start migrating from console to PC, because they may prefer to play on PC. At the same time we will have new players who have never played Destiny before and as always our community will be happy to welcome them.

But perhaps these new players won't feel as close to the story behind Destiny as the veterans do. How to solve this problem?

David: Destiny 2 gives each player the ability to create their own story and personal gaming experience. Moving around the Destiny universe if you've encountered the Fallen before, such as in House of Wolves, or your first contact with the Ghost, you'll obviously be honoring that legacy. But if you're a new Destiny player and first encounter the Fallen in the European Dead Zone, you'll have a chance to figure out who these enemies are and find out who you're fighting against.

A new story, a new villain. This time we find a great Cabal in front of us. In the previous chapter this race didn't even have a raid, while in this second chapter they are the main enemies. Was it a choice that you made earlier?

Justin: We created the character idea first, and then the race. We created Ghaul because we wanted characters that were scary, scary, capable of destroying the city's defenses and breaking contact with the Traveler. But we wanted him to have real reasons for doing this, reasons that you could understand, not like cartoon antagonists, acting out of their selfishness.

While playing the beta we noticed a lot of changes in the gameplay and also in the NPCs, such as the Guardians of the Vanguard. Now we can interact with them, in fact in the first mission we can talk to them and fight against them. It is as if they now have a soul of their own. I guess you have wanted it so much.

David: Amanda Holiday also left the "safety" of her secure hangar to reveal herself as the Ace Pilot, taking you to the next stage of the fight. The characters in the tower are part of the story and do their part. Everything we held dear and tried to protect is under attack, so the Vanguard is no longer in the safe areas of the Tower. They fight alongside the guardians to survive and to protect the city.

Will we see some events in Destiny 2 in the future, such as the "Festival of Lost Souls"?

David: The entire team is currently hard at work planning everything we need to do to make sure the world of Destiny 2 feels “alive”, with new things to do within the game. We will insert content to highlight the change of seasons, the passage of time during the course of the year. Right now, though, we're all focused on launching the game shortly, once the Guardians have a chance to stand up to the Cabals, protect the city, and rebuild what has been destroyed. We will get together to find out what will happen in the future.

One of the most loved features by the community in the first Destiny was the private matches. We know they will return, but we don't know when. Can you tell us something about it?

Justin: Private Matches will not be available at game launch. Unfortunately, we cannot tell you a precise date to date.

David: A lot of things will happen after the game is released. We will have a new story to show to players along with several features that will be implemented with the updates. Destiny was created precisely to be an ever-evolving game, adapting to the wishes of the community.

We tried a competitive mode in the Crucible. Why did you choose to approach this type of mode?

Justin: In the Crucible in Destiny 2 we tried to create two different modes when playing in PvP, namely quick and competitive match. In the competitive mode the game is marked by a contdown that makes everything more intense and dynamic and the players will have to try to play strategically, trying not to die. While the quick match is more casual, for newbies who just want to chill out in the evening. In short, we are trying to offer a game that in PvP can give the player what he wants at that moment.

It is said that match making in Spain is not very balanced, in fact it often happens to be in a team with players not at the same level. Will you do anything to improve it?

David: In the PC beta there will be a supervisor for match making. Quick Match will offer a wide variety of players with different skill levels, great for playing with friends. But in the competitive mode we will pay close attention to creating teams made up of players of similar levels, so that the teams fight on an equal footing.