Combustion was the second campaign story mission I worked on for Destiny 2’s original release. It was a unique experience for me at the time because the entire level had already been built and finished for a previously-designed mission intended to flow through the space. But after a table-flip reboot of the project in 2016, I was asked to author a new mission to take place in this salt-mine-themed level.
The work involved scripting several new combat encounters and re-scripting several set piece elements that had been created for the previous mission so that they worked with and made narrative/contextual sense in the new version.
Artist credit: Marc Thompson
One of the things I learned while working on this mission was how to make Destiny 2’s “flying” combatant types look like they are actually flying. As I was still new to the team and the tools at the time, my lead walked me through how he made Fallen Shanks fly up out of this deep canyon area in the level and I went on to use his techniques in the new version of the mission and several other missions on future Destiny 2 releases.
Artist credit: Marc Thompson