Future 2 is reaching a fairly outstanding milestone subsequent week when it launches The Last Form, an enlargement set to wrap up the story the sequence has been telling ever for the reason that first recreation launched in 2014. To some, this second means all the things, however there are others who couldn’t even start to know the magnitude of all of it. That’s as a result of Future’s lore, a lot as I like it, is almost unimaginable to glean in apparent methods. Fortunately, although, there are some of us attempting to make it a little bit simpler.
The YouTube creator My identify is Byf, whose profession revolves round documenting Future’s expansive and complicated lore, is one such individual, and he has simply premiered a ten-hour video detailing the historical past of the sequence. Each main plot beat within the recreation, from the earliest moments of the primary Future all the way in which to the at the moment ending season, has made the minimize. Even components of story that happen earlier than the primary recreation are featured within the video. The entire thing is immense, daunting, and likewise completely needed.
Byf’s video, which does function timestamps and may most likely be considered episodically, begins by establishing the world of Future, its many factions and characters, and the historical past that shapes it earlier than we bounce into the primary recreation. The occasions of the unique title make up the shortest components of the video, accounting for about 5 chapters over the course of about an hour. The majority of the story actually begins to kick into gear in the beginning of Future 2, as soon as Bungie roughly found out a path for the extra ambiguous components of the franchise, just like the enigmatic Darkness, and launched seasonal tales, that are coincidentally being phased out subsequent week.
Future has at all times had extremely Cool™ lore, however each installments within the sequence have fumbled its presentation. The primary recreation would direct gamers to learn Grimoire playing cards—which contained dense and pulpy sci-fi novellas—that might solely be discovered on the Future app, which means there was little to no approach for anybody to search out the sport’s most fascinating writing inside Future itself. Future 2 has finished a a lot better job of giving gamers codexes which can be full of books detailing ongoing conflicts and different fascinating lore tidbits from across the galaxy. Nonetheless, these tomes are buried beneath Future 2’s poor and convoluted UI, which solely will get worse the extra you take a look at it, and is happily being streamlined in The Last Form, amongst numerous different adjustments.
Whereas Bungie’s toiled away at mechanisms to raised implement its personal fascinating background tales into the precise Future video games, it has additionally been telling an ongoing story with lots of shifting components and massive ol’ correct nouns. Issues have solely worsened on this entrance contemplating what number of tales have been stripped from the sport and tossed right into a vault, like all of Future 2’s seasonal storytelling and the vanilla marketing campaign that it launched with! It’s laborious to handle a recreation, however it’s even tougher to get into Future and its narrative as a consequence of how acutely its builders have bungled all of it within the ensuing years. You may perceive now why so many followers of Future are clamoring for a new recreation, a brand new saga, and a contemporary begin.
For causes like this, of us like Byf have been a little bit of a lifeline for the story-savvy followers of Future. Very similar to Vaatividya clarifies and paperwork the intricacies of From Software program’s famously obtuse oeuvre, Byf is monitoring all of the narrative twists and turns taking place in Future’s fore and background. Each time I’ve fallen away from the sport, Byf’s lore movies have at all times managed to get me caught again up and jogged my memory of one of many causes I’ve cherished these video games for nearly ten years. It may have the identical magical impact on you all.
The Last Form is out subsequent week. When you’re ignoring the current leak like me and knocking out your previous few in-game duties this weekend, simply do your self a favor and have Byf’s video on within the background. Hell, throw it on whilst you’re preloading the factor throughout upkeep. Even in case you don’t memorize each final little bit of it earlier than the enlargement drops, I promise you’ll no less than have a newfound (or renewed) appreciation for all of the cool shit Future’s finished over the past ten years.