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Destiny 2 Raid Ideation - Revising the Setting

  • Writer: Graham Kidd
    Graham Kidd
  • Mar 18, 2021
  • 4 min read

Updated: May 18, 2021

There were a few goals I had when I started designing The Emperor's Tomb. I wanted to make a Cabal raid, but with an ancient feel as opposed to the futuristic, infernal-machine theme, or Calus' opulence and decayed splendor. I also wanted to craft a descent, that at some point contained a large maze in which players would get lost. I wanted this sense of scale, grandeur, and mystery that I feel is typically kept for the Vex. Vault of Glass has sweeping, enormous caverns that you wind your way through; Garden of Salvation has some of the best views in the game, showing players miles and miles of Black Garden goodness. Few other raids capture this sense of awe-inspiring scenery. Sure, in King's Fall and Deep Stone Crypt you can see space and its vastness, but my problem there is space itself doesn't imply traversability. There's a feeling of "that's cool, but I can't get there" when I look down on Europa from the satellite's underbelly (even though I can go there, albeit in a different instance than the raid). Cabal raids sometimes capture this feeling with their enormous machinery. The platforming segments in Eater of Worlds and Spire of Stars were fantastic, as was the completely optional and mind-bogglingly-complex underbelly of the Leviathan.


So what am I getting at here? Basically this: I have conflicting design goals for the setting. Ideally this raid should: draw inspiration from Roman architecture; descend into uncharted territory; have an unknown foe at the end; emphasize moving through an enormous space.

I'll start from the top


I want the first encounter to be a labyrinth. A few problems arise here:

  1. In Destiny 1's Vault of Glass, the encounter immediately following Templar was called The Gorgon's Labyrinth.

  2. Cabal might build impressively large machines, but as far as I know do not practice any sort of masonry or traditional architecture.

  3. Where would this even be built? The Cabal aren't native to Sol, and we certainly aren't going to Torobatl.

These problems lead to some interesting thought experiments. If I want the raid to be thematically Roman, the Vex are referential to Greek mythology — and they already have a labyrinthian structure that will soon exist in Destiny 2, though that labyrinth differs from my design greatly. How do I rectify this? Even more importantly, how do I address the problems in 2 and 3?


Making The Emperor's Tomb a Pattern Break

Earlier I said I wanted my raid to be mysterious in nature, to have unexpected occurrences and deep, unexplored recesses where who-knows-what might lurk. And what better way to introduce a twist than include a pattern break!


The raid remains markedly Cabal themed, and contains Cabal enemies. That is, until ultras in the second encounter turn out to be Vex minotaurs! This works on a subtle level because Vex are Grecian monsters in a Roman labyrinth, but also because of the raid's greater narrative. When encountering this first Vex after defeating Cabal on the way, players are confronted with an interesting conundrum, as the Vex and Cabal are not allies: are the Cabal in this raid real?


The answer to that question would be no, they are not. This will become more apparent as players continue progressing through the raid. The architectural style will still feel Roman (with subtle Vex accents like their textured stone), while combatant encounters can include Cabal Minors and Vex priority targets, such as Ultras and Bosses. This provides the raid with two interesting design spaces:

  1. Encounters can utilize both races' combatants

  2. Bosses can be Cabal, Vex, or both (I'll use this in my second encounter)


The Greater Narrative

I mentioned this earlier, a kind of overarching story that ties the raid together from before it even begins to when you loot that final boss chest. Obviously all raids have some overarching narrative that makes them interesting in addition to the interest brought by gameplay, visuals, and loot. The greater narrative is, summarized, as follows:

  • Deep within Nessus, a Vex mind obsesses over Cabal history and culture data sent to it by Vex on Nessus and those being eaten by the Leviathan

  • This mind creates its own simulated space, similar to how Atheon had control over time in the Vault of Glass

  • Using references to the data on the Cabal empire, it creates a series of structures and places itself at their center: a labyrinth, a coliseum, and [REDACTED]

  • The mind then simulates Cabal to populate this space, and tasks Vex overseers with maintaining its stability

Guardians are tasked with this incursion at the request of Caital (assuming an alliance is in our future). She demands we investigate this heretical place and put an end to what lies at its core, without going into much detail. Caital would be on comms for certain parts of this raid similarly to how she and Osiris talk during Presage, or how Riven speaks during Last Wish.

I don't have much to say beyond this, other than I think it makes the raid far more interesting and solves quite a few of my setting problems while introducing a new and interesting raid dynamic that differs from preexisting raids in an already established way (Infinite Forest merges combatant types in a Vex simulation, similar to this premise). I'm working on the second encounter now, and should be putting that up soon. I detailed the encounter spaces in my narrative description if you missed them and want a sneak peek.


Thanks for reading, and I'll see you in the next one.

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©2021 by Graham Kidd

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