Overview

The Cabal Red Legion was the biggest core combatants addition to Destiny 2. Brutish and aggressive, the Cabal fight with fewer, higher health units that wield more threatening weapons and have larger silhouettes. The Cabal control encounter space and resist player pushes more effectively than other races, tying into their militaristic theming.

I worked with another designer and a team of artists and animators in pitching, creating, and shipping new and updated enemy units, abilities, and weapons. After the departure of the small team leader a year before shipping, I took on increased production and design ownership responsibilities taking design ownership of the race through the closing of the project. As always, development is a team effort, and I cannot take sole credit for anything; with that being said, here are some examples of notable design work I contributed to the Red Legion.

Psion

The Psion is a small, low health, specialist combatant that engages players from cover.

Psions have a psionic rupture ability:

The Psion briefly charges a ball of psionic energy before launching it towards the player. This ball leaves a DoT fire trail in its wake and triggers if it comes close enough to a target, launching victims vertically after a short delay.

This ability slows players pushing towards enemy space by forcing them to jump or dodge to avoid the damage and knockup, and it encourages players to change their approach path to avoid the DoT fire trail. Additionally, the ability can expose players fighting from the edge of cover by launching them, encouraging players fighting defensively to reposition or dodge.

Legionary

The Legionary is a medium toughness combatant that serves as the general purpose backbone of typical Red Legion encounters.

Legionaries perform a melee charge behavior:

A small group of one to three legionaries extend their arm blades and run or jetpack at their target to melee them.

This ability temporarily increases the threat of an otherwise lower threat unit, encouraging players to react and shift their priority to stun or kill the charging legionaries before they can deal a higher damage melee strike.

Legionaries can also fire their arm blade as a grenade:

The Legionary launches their arm blade in a shallow arc, sticking it into the surface hit. It detonates shortly after.

The grenade is a temporary area denial ability, encouraging players to move to avoid the explosion. Additionally, there is a moment of opportunity while the legionary readies the grenade where quick to react players can interrupt the launch and cause the grenade to fall at the Legionary's feet.