Why are the intro scenes so short?
And why is it based on the class I picked?
We all know how it is. We wait, we squirm, we count the days until the game we've preordered months ago is released. It's like Christmas when Tuesday rolls around and midnight releases are even more exciting because of the hype. I don't know about you, but I'm the kind of person that will sit by the front door of the game shop for hours. Twelve hours, by the way. That's how long I ever stood in line for a game, which was Halo 3, so you can only imagine my hyper energy levels for Destiny.
Ripping open the plastic, sliding the disc into the console, basking in the glow of the first loading screen. There it is, the deliciousness that is starting a new campaign in a fresh realm. But don't forget about creating your avatar, or in Destiny's case your Guardian. I can't tell you how long it took me to decide between an Exo and an Awoken. I chose the former, who doesn't want to be a 'war machine'?
Then... Bam!
The initial intro scene, the platform in which the rest of the story will be built on. So why are my rewrites so short for the opening? I don't know about you but I want to be thrown into the trenches from the get go. I've been waiting months to play the game, to wait a couple more minutes? No, I can get the backstory after I kill a few things. Call me impatient, call me childish, but remember I'm a full grown woman who's obsessed with video games and winning. That's why the initial start scenes are brief, so the player knows how they came to be but not much more than that before being tossed to the wolves. It's gripping and engaging, it makes you go “Oh snap, we're starting already?” to “Let's do this!”.
Now there was probably another difference you saw between my version and the actual version that was released, a difference of class being the deciding factor. Why? Think about it. During the Collapse hundreds of Humans, Awoken, and Exos would have toed the line, trying to save what they could before being swallowed up by the Darkness. Bodies would have been scattered across the galaxy and with Guardians taking back territories they could have very well escorted Ghosts that still needed to find their person to resurrect. Ghosts shouldn't be floating about all willy nilly either, we can't afford to lose any more parts of the Traveler. We all saw what happened with the shard of the Traveler the Hive Wizards had been feasting on.
What's another reason for the class based change? Replay value. There's many players who have one of each class, so let's change it up a little and make it worthwhile to sit through cutscenes if we don't have the ability to skip them. Even if we could, who wouldn't want to see a new scene? It keeps the player's interest instead of making them grow a grudge for playing through the campaign again.
The third reason is a little more subtle. I don't know about you, but when I go through the Buried City with my Exo Hunter I would have found it chilling to come upon the same place that I had initially died and was brought back to life. To stand at that spot, marvel at the Traveler's and Ghost's abilities, and press on for the mission. It's like telling the Darkness “You consumed me once, but you cannot keep me for I was reborn and I am the Light”.
