Overview
The Fallen House of Dusk faction is the updated Fallen combatants lineup in Destiny 2, receiving the second highest amount of development time and resources behind the Red Legion. While the Red Legion were more of a new faction with heavy emphasis on new abilities and behaviors, the provided goals for the Fallen were to improve upon and update the existing race. The Fallen are generally lower health combatants with a theme of high mobility and usage of technology; they employ pressure with a higher number of units and high volume of fire.
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 in updating the Fallen.
An uncloaked Fallen Marauder equipped with melee-only shock blades. I updated the stealth VFX of the Fallen for Destiny 2, creating the shipping stealth effect.
Marauder
The Marauder is a new short ranged combatant with medium-low health. They wield either a shotgun or are melee-only combatants, and act as a counterpart to the medium-long range Vandal combatant.
Marauders utilize active camouflage:
When first acquiring a target, Marauders will enter stealth mode where they are harder to see. If a Marauder attacks in melee or is stunned by damage, they will flicker out of stealth and will later attempt to re-activate their camouflage. Shotgun marauders become slightly more visible as they fire. In the original Destiny, the Vandal unit was the stealth unit, but only sometimes when spawned as a special "Stealth Vandal" unit. Stealthed vandals camouflaged immediately upon spawn, did not become more visible while firing, and could equip weapons of any range.
Removing active camouflage capabilities from the Vandal in Destiny 2 and putting it onto a new unit allows players to more intuitively and quickly understand what they will be facing when noticing the Vandal or Marauder. The improved readability is furthered by also restricting Vandals to longer range weapons and Marauders to closer range weapons. Having Marauders patrol un-stealthed when not in combat allows players who get the drop on a group of Fallen to have an advantage v.s. being spotted. Adding the flash during shots helped alleviate some of the difficulty of quickly reading the source of projectiles fired from Marauders in a player's periphery.
Servitor
The Servitor is a high health support and artillery combatant.
Servitors have a new shield pulse ability:
On a set cadence, Servitors will send out a shield pulse. Nearby allies hit with the pulse become temporarily linked to the Servitor, and are immune to non-super damage for a short time (slightly less time than the cadence of the pulse). The link is severed early if the Servitor is killed.
This ability adds priority to Servitors in general, as they make fighting other Fallen more difficult while they are alive. Additionally, it adds defensiveness and a sense of controlled enemy space to Fallen encounters while keeping with the theme of mobility and technology over raw health. Players are encouraged to change targets to the Servitor if it begins shielding the original Fallen target, but players can utilize the moment of opportunity when units lose the shield link before the next pulse to finish off weak foes.
A Fallen Servitor
A Fallen Captain wielding the Molten Welder, an arcing explosive weapon I designed and built prototype VFX for.
Captain
The Captain is a shielded, high health combatant that serves as a focal point in a typical Fallen squad.
Captains can rapidly chain teleports:
When threatened, a Captain will perform an evasive teleport. However, unlike evasive abilities from other units, the Captain will quickly attack back with a burst of weapon fire and teleport again if the player continues aiming at them. Captains can chain rapid teleports up to three times total unless they are stunned with damage or block the player's line of sight.
Again pursuing the themes of mobility and technology over vitality, this defensive teleport encourages players to track the Captain with their aim and continue applying damage quickly rather than taking time to carefully place shots.
A maze of tripwires
Tripwire
I updated the Fallen tripwire trap to chain detonations to other tripwires and also added functionality to allow activities designers to activate and deactivate the tripwires through script.