Destiny 2’s robot dog was the brainchild of Bungie’s art department

Those who have jumped right into the latest season of Destiny 2 (Season of the Seraphim) will no doubt be aware of the bonus easter egg that can be found by getting the Exotic Pulse Rifle Overhaul: Zero and then destroying all 50 strange glowing orbs found in the Solar System. Once this is done, you can head to an interesting room in the exotic mission Operation: Seraph Station Exotic Mission, where, after a bit of platforming, you’ll come across an Exo dog named Archie. Needless to say, it was an addition that went down well with the Destiny 2 community.

As for how Archie (Full Archangel) came to be, in a recent group interview, Senior Narrative Designer Nikko Stevens told us the origin of the robot dog and how it really came from the art team.

“Archie was a pitch that came out of the art department,” Stevens said. “This is another example of how ideas come from anywhere, take hold and move forward. He Came out of the art department. Rob Adams [director artístico] and his team introduced themselves and in the conception phase they talked about how they wanted to make this Exo/robotic dog. That was how it started. And of course, as soon as someone says ‘we want to make a robot dog’, everyone in the room says ‘yes please, can we make a robot dog?

“It caught on very quickly, and from a narrative standpoint, we wanted to support it, so we integrated it into the Ana and Rasputin story and the Seraph Station story. I mean teams across the Vanguard group are collaborating in things like this, so the artists create the robot dog, and then our investment designers and activity designers come up with what the experience of unlocking that dog is going to be like for players and what they’re going to feel up to that point. And then the narrative determines how it makes sense within the story, and so we call it Archangel and Archie.”

“It’s a big effort from all departments to do things like this, and those ideas can come from anywhere.”

We’re told this story is similar to that of Eclipse’s “owlfish,” which we’ll be able to see in all its glory when the expansion arrives in late February.