Destiny 2 won't have Grimoire Cards, here's why

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For Destiny 2, Bungie is bidding farewell to one of its strangest storytelling tools; never again will you unlock a Grimoire Card. If you're not familiar with the concept, they're basically an even more hardcore version of a post-credits scene: Grimoire Cards tell you a lot about Destiny's story but only people who are already super invested bother to stick around for them.

Grimoire Cards are unlocked in-game by finding dead Ghosts or making progress toward larger goals but you have to log on to Bungie's site to actually read them. This meant relatively few players ever knew some of the game's coolest stories. Destiny 2 world design lead Steve Cotton told us at the reveal event last week that Bungie has shifted the Grimoire's narrative load to in-game methods this time around.

"There's stories to chase in each world," Cotton explained. "There's the campaign story, reclaiming your power and your home. But then each world has a character in the world that has their own story to tell and you do things for them. And so each one of those adventures is telling a story. The Lost Sectors you find, when you discover those dungeons and these bosses, you make your own stories as you go as a player.

"As far as lore, there are still lore objects to scan and collect and find throughout the world. We want to put all the lore in the game. No more Grimoire, just all the lore in the game."

As soon as Destiny added scannable objects in The Taken King it felt like the Grimoire's days were numbered. It's a much nicer experience to find something in-game and get an immediate, voiced explanation from your Ghost about it. The Grimoire was a cool idea but it was just too much work for people who are only moderately invested in the story. Like me, for instance.

For more on Bungie's upcoming online shooter, read every detail from the Destiny 2 gameplay reveal and how Destiny 2 was built by players as much as it was by Bungie.

Connor Sheridan
Connor Sheridan

I got a BA in journalism from Central Michigan University - though the best education I received there was from CM Life, its student-run newspaper. Long before that, I started pursuing my degree in video games by bugging my older brother to let me play Zelda on the Super Nintendo. I've previously been a news intern for GameSpot, a news writer for CVG, and was formerly a staff writer at GamesRadar.