Bungie has revealed some more behind-the-scene details on the new Prismatic subclass in Destiny 2’s The Final Shape expansion.
Prismatic is the new subclass in The Final Shape that allows players to merge abilities from both Light and Darkness subclasses. The announcement of this subclass took many fans by surprise, as it fulfilled a long-standing desire within the Destiny 2 community.
Related: Destiny 2 Prismatic Subclass Detailed: Supers, Grenades, Melee, Aspects, and More
In the latest issue of PC Gamer magazine, Bungie’s project lead, Catarina Macedo, talked about how this new subclass came to be, along with some of the challenges that the development team faced.
“With The Final Shape, when we were doing the concept for the expansion, one of the things was, ‘What is the thing that we can give players that is the most representative of this journey we’ve been on?’ Especially since Beyond Light when we started building the Darkness,” said Macedo, in an interview with PC Gamer’s Phil Savage.
“And one of the things that we kept falling into was, we really want this to be like the ultimate expression of a Guardian – of wielding both Light and Darkness. And how can we make sure that we can do that without completely breaking the videogame? it’s a big set of challenges.”
The Warlock’s Prismatic subclass graphic from PC Gamer provides a comprehensive overview of all the supers, melee, grenade, and aspects available for players to combine and buildcraft with in Destiny 2 The Final Shape.
According to Macedo, the team faced challenges ensuring the new Prismatic subclass would not overshadow existing ones, preserving their relevance and distinct identities in the new sandbox.
“There are a couple of things we really wanted to make sure that we got right. One of them is to make sure that all the other subclasses are still viable and have their space in the game. We didn’t want to invalidate that, and that was a big risk.
“The other thing is to make sure the classes still maintain their own identity even within the Prismatic subclass. That’s the choice that we went through on what atoms – like aspects and fragments and abilities – we were going to enable to make sure that it’s still the ultimate representation of being a Titan, a Hunter and a Warlock.”
Similar to the Warlock, here’s the Prismatic subclass overview for Titans, courtesy of PC Gamer:
Related: 25 Major Updates in Destiny 2 The Final Shape Players Should Look Forward to
“We really want to push the boundaries of what we’ve done in Destiny and, I mean… this is the moment,” said Macedo. “We’re going inside the Traveler, we’re defeating the ultimate boss. How are we going to be doing this? What tools should we have available to us to do this?”
“And I think, in a meta way, this is the way we envisioned. With the exotic class items for each one of the classes – the combination of two exotics, was something we were really excited and also really scared about. But I think we did a really good job and I think players are gonna have a blast trying to find whatever concepts they want.”
In addition to its balanced integration, the Prismatic subclass appears to have a promising future for expansion. Macedo hinted at the potential for new aspects to be added to the Prismatic subclass over time, stating, “We’re not launching with everything we might ever launch. As developers, it’s exciting to have that to play with in the future.”
Lastly, below is the Prismatic subclass overview for Hunters. Graphics courtesy of PC Gamer:
Destiny 2 The Final Shape is set to launch on June 4, 2024, on PlayStation, Xbox, and PC.
