Destiny 2: Forsaken - High Moon Studios • Abhishek Singh

As a member of the Tech Design team along with Chris Beagle and our lead, Colin Callahan, I worked on the following campaign features for the Tangled Shore destination:

Prototyped two unique Public Events for the destination.
Worked on the abilities of the combatants for the new Scorn faction.
Developed unique gameplay mechanics for the campaign missions and adventures.
Created investment content for both the open world and story.

A crucial part of my role was to fix memory, asset cleanup, and networking issues throughout the shared playable space.

Detailed Breakdown

Video Credits: Esoterickk, [Harby] (https://www.youtube.com/user/HarbyInHD/about) & GameOverConnor

1. Public Events

I scripted the core functionality of both the new Public Events introduced in Forsaken.

For Cryo-Pod, this involved the pod drop, freezing gas logic, transition to heroic version, and wave setup. The big challenge was to make the entire logic as generic as possible, so that we could easily create instances with different factions/combatants and tune them independently.

Ether Ritual had significantly more iterations regarding the combat logic and the rotation of the major combatants. Most of my time was spent making the foundation as modular as possible, so that making significant changes based off playtests wasn’t too painful.

I was also responsible for the implementation of these events across the destination, and hooking them up into the UI/Director. My main contributions were during the prototype phase; the eventual tuning and polish were handled by Chris Beagle and Craig Sutton.

Cryo Pod

Ether Ritual

2. Scorn Combatants

I worked closely with the Mechanics and AI teams to develop unique elements for some of the Scorn combatants and Barons. The major highlights were:

Ravager - Flame Censers

These headless units wield a flame censer, which also happens to be their weak spot. My challenge was to have the censer detach from the ragdoll on a non-crit death, and still be capable of detonating and burning other enemy units in addition to the corpses.

Yaviks, the Rider

Yaviks is a mounted unit who is defined by the Pike that she rides. I worked on the energy barrier that appears on the front of the vehicle whenever she boosts. The barrier has amusing physics interactions, depending on whether you ram into it with your Guardian or with another vehicle.

Araskes, the Trickster

One of my personal favorites, I loved the theme of the Trickster. I worked on her mine-dropping ability that is showcased during the chase, as well as the final boss fight.

3. Gameplay Mechanics

I’m pretty sure I was involved in every mission and adventure set on the Tangled Shore. Some of my key contributions were:

Story Mission: ‘Scorned’ – The spawn mechanism for the friendly Spider units (aka Spiky Bois).
Adventure: ‘The Rider’ – The malfunctioning pike that you steal from Yaviks' garage.
Adventure: ‘The Trickster’ – The holographic trap mines disguised as heavy ammo, planetary materials and loot chests.
Adventure: ‘The Hangman’ – The caged servitor encounters and randomizing their availability for all fireteams that could potentially trigger it in the same bubble.

4. Investment

Guided by Colin and Bungie’s investment team, I implemented several Triumphs that can be achieved by the player during open-world freeplay as well as specific activities like adventures and strikes. Some of them are well-hidden!

triumphs