Destiny 2 will not have Grimoire Cards

Say goodbye (and good riddance) to unlockable out-game lore cards. Destiny 2 will do away with Grimoire Cards—digital cards filled with Destiny lore and backstory details—according to Bungie.

In an interview with Forbes, Bungie’s World Lead Steve Cotton revealed that the often loathed digital cards of Destiny will be supplemented with in-game storytelling. “The reason [for abandoning Grimoire Cards] is because we want to put the lore in the game,” Cotton said. “We want people to be able to find the lore. All the story is told through the Adventures, it’s told through the characters in the world, it’s told through the campaign and it’s told through scannables you find throughout the world.”

In the current version of Destiny, players unlock Grimoire Cards by performing in-game actions and achieving a certain ‘feat’ in that activity (e.g. 1’000 headshots earns 1 card). Each card offers various snippets of story details, whether it be an ancient story of Destiny’s lore or a journal entry from one of the main characters. These cards cannot be read within the game itself but are accessed online or via the Destiny companion app, making for a detached narrative experience. These storytelling devices, though appreciated by many, were a byproduct of Destiny’s infamously lacking original story, which had been reportedly stitched together last minute after the game’s original story pitch was scrapped during development (a year out from the game’s 2014 launch). The Grimoire Cards served to patch up the game’s many gaping plot holes and question marks.

Bungie recently revealed a ton of details about Destiny 2, including its new clan-based Raid matchmaking systems and three new worlds to be explored. We got to play some of Destiny 2, including a new Strike and a new Crucible mode called Countdown. The game will be out for Xbox One and PS4 on September 8 and later on PC as a Battle.net exclusive.