Bungie seems to have learned from the criticism the original Destiny game received- where the original game got a lot of flack for its narrative (or the complete lack thereof), Destiny 2 seems to be putting some emphasis on its story.
That story is going to matter for the franchise, going forward. Destiny 2 project lead Mark Noseworthy said in an interview with the Daily Star that the game will ‘cast a long shadow’ for subsequent entries and expansions to the Destiny universe.
“Destiny 2 is really a story about the Light, and what it means to be a Guardian, and we think Destiny 2 will cast a long shadow on subsequent games, and it will matter, and we are building towards something,” Noseworthy said.
“We’re not going to say the story [from Destiny 1] is unrelated… with every sequel, we’re going to take the opportunity to go back to a level playing field and introduce new players and get a fresh start. And that’ll mean certain things narratively. But we certainly see the next few games and expansions tying together narratively in a way that they all build upon each other.
“We don’t want to get to a place where you can’t play Destiny 3 because you missed some DLC and now you don’t know what’s going on… we’d never do that,” he said. “But certainly the big beats in the sequels will together tell a story that we think is pretty cool.”
Which is fair- it makes sense that they have to strike a fine line between narrative continuity, and not alienating potential new players. That said, it is good to see that they have taken the feedback from the original game into account to try and flesh out the rather interesting universe that they hinted at in the original game.