Bungie says Destiny 2 will do more with characters like Calus, Caiatl, Saint-14, Mithrax, and more in the future.
During our recent interview with Bungie about turning Savathun into the series' best villain yet and building seasons like serialized TV shows, senior narrative lead Julia Nardin and senior narrative designer Nikko Stevens affirmed that both newly introduced and long-silent characters will play a part in the story at some point in the future.
Destiny 2's first raid boss, Calus, is "out there waiting, doing something, we're not really sure, but we're really excited to do things with him after the Ghost ship activity in Season 14," Nardin teased. Likewise, she says that Mithrax, Saint-14, and perhaps most importantly Caiatl will be seen again.
"Season of the Chosen is not the last you'll see of Caiatl," Nardin told us. "We really want to pay off the relationship that she and Zavala have developed. We've tried to talk about her a little bit in some of the lore about how she's advising Zavala. And then the Lakshmi situation in Season of the Splicer, she approaches him about how to handle this Savathun situation in the Dreaming City. She's not going to be relegated to lore forever. We're going to hear from her again. We're going to hear from Mithrax and Saint again. We want to keep building momentum and that we're telling stories people are emotionally invested in and excited about."
Stevens also pointed out that some overlooked characters may become more important as the narrative unfolds. In particular, he teased that "I think the community hasn't noticed how impactful Xivu Arath is in the story quite yet."
"One thing you have to take into consideration is you want each season to be a little different, but at the same time you're trying to tell this interlocking, cohesive story, right?" Stevens explained. "People liked Season of the Splicer, people enjoyed Mithrax's story, but you don't want an entire year focused entirely on the Vex and the Eliksni coming into the city, right? People are going to say 'Enough Fallen, enough Eliksni, enough Vex, let's move onto something else.' Balancing those concepts of keeping the seasons interlocked and the story moving forward in a way that's cohesive, as well as trying to make sure people are engaging with content and gameplay that's visceral and new and feels different than the thing they just played, that's one of the biggest challenging points."
Disconcertingly, it sounds like one character will make their final appearance soon enough: Bungie says that a weapon teasing the death of a character is "not a coincidence."
