Two four-year-old girls inspired Destinys revamped quest and Light systems

Destiny: The Taken King creative director Luke Smith had an unlikely source of inspiration for the changes brought on by the latest Destiny expansion: his two four-year-old nieces. Smith told GamesRadar+ during one of our recent "How It's Done" streams that making the game more clear and understandable was a major focus for The Taken King, and keeping his young extended family in mind helped him keep that philosophy throughout development.

While The Taken King was always going to have quests, reflecting on how his nieces would perceive such a major change so late in the game haunted Smith. "I had a moment in a meeting … We were talking about the quest log and talking about how to do it and how we would make it work and what the transition would be like for a player playing vanilla; what it would be like for that player to suddenly begin The Taken King and have all this quest stuff turned on. And I just was thinking about these two nieces and being like, 'Oh my God, those kids would never understand it.'" Smith realized that, in order for his nieces to be engaged in an activity, the rules would need to be there from the start - not something new that they'd suddenly be forced to learn. As a result, Destiny's previously released content was "questified" as well.

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Sam Prell

Sam is a former News Editor here at GamesRadar. His expert words have appeared on many of the web's well-known gaming sites, including Joystiq, Penny Arcade, Destructoid, and G4 Media, among others. Sam has a serious soft spot for MOBAs, MMOs, and emo music. Forever a farm boy, forever a '90s kid.