The Enemies Of Destiny

With the Covenant and the Flood in Halo, Bungie knows a thing or two about creating iconic enemies.

With the Covenant and the Flood in Halo, Bungie knows a thing or two about creating iconic enemies. Art director Christopher Barrett told us all about the four new alien foes that players will be gunning down in Destiny in terms of background, looks, architecture, and more.

The Fallen

Barrett: The feeling we wanted to get across with them is they’re space pirates, basically. They’re these vicious race of guys who act like a pirate crew. They might mutiny or there’s a captain who might lead them on a particular ship. We wanted a race that could show up anywhere. They didn’t need some big base or installation. You find them around a corner and they were scavenging for loot or whatnot.

We wanted to give this idea that they were this once proud and noble race with these great houses, but now they’ve fallen. And that’s where they get their name. Now they’re scattered to the winds and have their own pirate ships, but they still wear the banners and flags of their once great house. Maybe someday the houses will reunite. There are a lot of fun ideas we can play with there.

They have four arms, which is unique to them. We actually went back and forth a few times on the four arms thing. We weren’t sure how it was exactly going to work. People were worried that it would look like that guy from Mortal Kombat [Goro -- Ed.]. They have pieces of body armor, but then they’re pirates so it’s torn and tattered. They’re like the bounty hunters of the solar system. They have cloaks and pieces of armor. Playing up the four arms idea, they’re a little bit spidery I guess.

Because they’re sort of nomadic you see them mostly in their ships. [They’re inspired by] Maschinen Krieger [Kow] Yokoyama style of mechs and vehicles. It’s kit bashed pieces of armor. It’s almost like a weird rusted futuristic submarine kind of style. We may someday come across a bigger Fallen space.

The Cabal

Barrett: We knew for a space sci-fi kind of game we needed the big, huge, militaristic empire kind of theme. They definitely fit that. They have huge capital chips and giant tanks. Their bodies are huge, their armor is huge, and their guns are huge. So they might just go and take over a planet by force, just kind of roll over it. They definitely are coming to the solar system and setting up these bases and trying to take over by force.

We definitely wanted big, heavy space marine kind of look so that’s why you have the heavy armor, almost an animalistic feel to their armor designs. When they take off their helmet they’re big lumbering space rhinos. They come from a warm, humid climate so they have to keep wet inside their suits. They’re basically big beasts. We joked for a while about lining the inside of their spaceships with troughs so they were like horses. We wanted their ships to be basically space barns. I don’t know if you’ll find hay on the ground, but you want that feel. I don’t know if we’re actually going to end up doing that.

They’re gruff but they’re really ordered as well. They have a hierarchical military order to them. It’s sort of that back and forth of the beasts that are really gruff and aggressive mixed with that kind of order is kind of a cool thing to play with.

[Their structures are] massive, metal, and industrial. There will be black smoke pouring out of them. There will be oil streaking down the sides of the facades -- these monolithic industrial military structures.

[Next page: Read about The Vex and The Hive]