Related: Outriders' Story Succeeds Where Destiny Failed Pages and pages of Destiny's story and lore were offloaded into ' Grimoire' entries on Bungie's website for later viewing, seemingly because the developer couldn't fit it all into the hodgepodge that was the original game's narrative. Pre-release hype devolved into a rote and confusing story, a jumble of tropes that took several expansions to sort out. But what eventually released as Destiny was not the same world formulated in Bungie's first days of independence from Microsoft. Destiny and Destiny 2 seem like the next logical step, getting rid of the space marine subtext and casting players as holy warriors in a literal battle between light and dark. Early concept art for Destiny shows it was originally going to be far more traditional in its take on fantasy, however, much of which was lost in the final product. Both Marathon and Halo mix sci-fi tropes with otherworldly opposing forces and high-tech stand-ins for magic. Bungie's games have always had a signature, fantastical vibe.

Halo marine concept art