How Bungie Created Strand, Destiny 2’s First New Subclass in 3 Years

Late February saw the long-awaited release Destiny 2: Lightfalla new extension that signals the “beginning of the end” Destiny’s A story of light and darkness. The campaign takes the Guardians to the hidden city of Neomna within Neptune’s interior, leaving Shadow undisturbed until his Legion’s forces arrive. It’s up to you and Neomna’s guardian Cloud his Strider to protect the city.

Our Guardians also discover a whole new power: Strands. They have this questionable thread-like substance, light fall Campaign, and it appears in a whole new subclass destiny 2 First introduced player since Stasis in 2020.

I was curious to learn more about how this new subclass, Bungie, arrived at its design and how all the pieces fit together. To dig even deeper, we spoke with Gameplay Features Lead Eric Smith to reveal how the New Darkness his power came about.

like all subclasses of destiny 2, Strands give each of the three player classes Titan, Hunter, and Warlock a different ability, as well as one powerful super ability tailored to each class. The burly Titan gains the Berserker ability, summoning two massive handblades to chop down foes. Sophisticated Warlocks send shards of strands into their foes, detonating them into ferocious Threadling foes. A skillful hunter uses his skill Silk Strike to summon a long rope his darts and pierce through their enemies.

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Strand focuses on traversal in a way never explored before. destiny 2All characters gain a grapple. This allows you to hook onto surfaces or areas and swing through the air, perfect for moving quickly or solving tricky jumping puzzles. Smith said the grapple was made possible as a result of the team’s quest for skill, with the grapple being central to Strand’s class.

“Since the strand damage type theme is all about ropes and strings, it felt like a natural fit to put a grappling hook there,” says Smith. “We did a lot of research into how the grapple works.Whether you want it to be explosive acceleration or you want to go from point to point, it ended up being this place. As you learn strands, it becomes a little bit of your mind.

“You can zip to a certain point if you look straight ahead, but you can also swing under it, throttle left and right, swing. It’s become a really dynamic grapple.”

Since the grapple ability replaces the grenade slot for players using Strand, we also needed some damage functionality to make up for the slot loss. As a result, what if you were a grenade?

“We wanted to give it some offensive utility because we’re going to use that slot,” explains Smith. “One thing you can do is a grapple punch, which does pretty big area damage. You can use the grapple to get out of a bad situation, but you can also use it like a grenade to wipe out multiple enemies. Yes, I think Strand has a learning curve and I’m looking forward to seeing players master it.”

Strand and delivery

During combat, Strand users can create tangles by killing enemies weakened by another Strand ability. For example, Hunter has his Ensnaring Slam ability, which can launch groups of enemies into the air by slamming the ground. Titans can also stop enemies with the Drengr’s Lash skill.

This tangle can be shot to cause an explosion, picked up and thrown at another enemy, or thrown into the air to use as a grappling point. I’m here.

“Having that system in place and having different perks that trigger Tangles made me feel like I was doing something different than other subclasses,” he says. “This happens passively, and once you create the Tangle there is a branching decision point where you can choose what to do with it.”

Tangle is just one aspect of Strand that works to make Guardians a more cooperative subclass to play with. For example, if you use the Guardian’s grapple ability with grapplepoint, there is no cooldown, so the hunter will have Widows use his silk ability to give other teammates a grapplepoint that they can use without consuming their own grapple ability. can be created. Smith explains that as Strand develops, the team wants to give fireteam members more opportunities to combine their unique skills.

“We wanted players to pave the way for their teammates and help them with jumping puzzles, which is something we plan to double down on in upcoming seasons,” he said. say.

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Strand subclasses introduce Threadlings. These are small creatures formed from Strands that rush away and attack anything within range. Smith says this was one of the more difficult abilities to identify. Destiny 2 Rough terrain and dynamic environments.

“Threadlings are what we call ‘ground followers. Because it is constrained to crawl on the ground. destiny 2 It can be difficult for players to use them effectively,” he explains. “They have a fairly long tracking range, so they can track enemies, stop and jump. This gives them some verticality, but we plan to adjust the functionality over time. is.”

The team also balances the amount of damage Threadlings can deal and how often they are active, not only in PvE modes like the campaign, but also in online PvP, where even a small amount of damage can dramatically change the game. I had a need.

“It’s frustrating to play against too many Threadlings in PvP, so we wanted to strike a balance between not making the PvP mode choppy and giving players the most fun possible.”

This balancing act was also important when designing the three main class super abilities. Smith details the breadth of the level of work and discipline that must be involved in creating super abilities.

“Whenever we create a new super, we create a list of possible designs and narrow it down to the realistic ones,” he explains. “But there are a lot of decisions to make: animation, VFX, design, engineering, audio. So many things have to be brought together to balance Super itself across so many game modes. “

You can see some of the unused super ideas in the image below, but Smith says Warlock’s super abilities pretty much ended with tentacles that sprout and attack enemies. Equally cool is Needlestorm, a real-life Warlock Super that can unleash barrages at enemies.

A closer look at Strand leaves one question. Why did the team choose green as the subclass color?Smith searched for the perfect hex code for him and the team ensured that all classes were instantly identifiable and aesthetically pleasing. He said he wanted to.

“I had several options, but I felt that green stood out the most,” he says. “It worked really well with the Strand theme. We wanted it to look like a green ball of yarn and make you think about it every time you pass by the yarn in the store.”

light fall Players permanently unlock Strands at the end light fall Participate in campaigns and from there unlock aspects and fragments that allow you to truly personalize your subclass to your playstyle.

A new Raid Route of Nightmare was released last Friday. light fallswing the Neomna to unleash the abilities of these strands and equip yourself to face the ancient threat growing on our doorstep.

Destiny 2: Lightfall is available on Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One.

Destiny 2: Lightfall

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Pre-order to unlock new Exotic Ghosts and Legendary Emblems instantly. Includes Lightfall, new raids, and Season Pass for Season 20. The Campaign Find the strength of your fellow Guardians as the end of everything draws near in the city of Neptune under siege. Here are the witnesses. Arm yourself with new rewards, unlock new dark powers, and emerge victorious in Lightfall’s haunting Legendary mode. Harness Strand Harness Darkness to pull the strings of reality with this new subclass. Flow through the city at new speeds as you struggle from building to building. All classes can take advantage of this new element, but it’s up to you to create the perfect build. NEW DESTINATIONS Travel to Neptune and discover a neon metropolis never explored in Destiny 2. Cloud he meets the Striders and joins Shadow in battle against his Legion to prevent devastation in the technologically advanced secret city of Neomna. 105 GB hard drive storage space required as of November 10, 2020. Subject to change. Broadband Internet required. After November 10, 2020, please refer to www.destinythegame.com/size-requirements for current requirements before purchasing. Destiny 2 may contain flashing patterns and images that may adversely affect a small number of sensitive users. Bungie, Inc. does not guarantee the availability of online play or features and may modify or discontinue online services at any time with reasonable notice. Use of the software constitutes acceptance of the Destiny Software License Agreement available at www.bungie.net/sla. © 2023 Bungie, Inc. All rights reserved. Destiny, the Destiny Logo, Bungie, and the Bungie Logo are trademarks of Bungie, Inc. Published and distributed by Bungie, Inc.