Destiny 2 almost gave Warlocks a Strand Super that turned them into giant egg-shooting spiders

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Bungie went in some wild directions prototyping Lightfall's Strand abilities

Destiny 2 Lightfall
(Image credit: Bungie)

Bungie went through a lot of drafts while designing the Strand subclasses coming in Destiny 2 Lightfall, and one of them would've turned Warlocks into giant spiders that shoot eggs filled with little spiders. 

"The Warlock was difficult to design," feature lead Eric Smith said of Strand at a recent press event. "With the Broodweaver, it was going to be a minion master from the beginning. But the Super was originally going to transform you into this giant spider that launched spider eggs and had spider babies instead of Threadlings."

Sadly, it was "out of scope" to turn Warlocks into eight-legged behemoths. Can't think why! But Broodweaver "did retain that minion master fantasy and the more traditional biped form," Smith said. 

"We went from there to flying minions that shot out their own missiles, but that felt like we were introducing too many visual languages to the subclass," he continued. "We wanted to keep it readable. So for all of all these subclasses, we did a bunch of explorations that didn't make it into the final product, but each of them helped us get closer to where we ended up."

We won't be turning into spiders anytime soon, but there is some good news to numb that pain: unlocking Strand abilities in Lightfall should be much easier than grinding out all those Stasis quests in Beyond Light. Bungie was quick to stress that it's heard the feedback there and streamlined the unlock process for its newest subclass.

Read our Destiny 2 Lightfall Strand preview to learn more on how Strand actually works in combat and why it kind of reminds us of Doom Eternal. We've also got a detailed guide covering the newly revealed abilities for the Destiny 2 Strand Subclasses.

Austin Wood
Austin Wood
Senior writer

Austin has been a game journalist for 12 years, having freelanced for the likes of PC Gamer, Eurogamer, IGN, Sports Illustrated, and more while finishing his journalism degree. He's been with GamesRadar+ since 2019. They've yet to realize his position is a cover for his career-spanning Destiny column, and he's kept the ruse going with a lot of news and the occasional feature, all while playing as many roguelikes as possible.