Bungie didn't really get Destiny at first, says Taken King creative director

"Ghost is a really great metaphor for Destiny," says creative director, shortly before criticising both.

Destiny has been a success and inspired a loyal player base, but even hardcore fans admit it struggled a bit out of the gate. You could argue it didn't really hit its stride till The Taken King launched.

The Taken King creative director Luke Smith has freely copped to vanilla Destiny's shortcoming in a discussion with GamesRadar on Peter Dinklage's poorly-received version of Ghost, the player's AI companion.

"I think that the Ghost is a really great metaphor for Destiny," he said. "I don't know that we, as Bungie, understood the type of game that Destiny could be.

"In the same way, I feel like a bunch of the early writing for the Ghost, in vanilla, we didn't understand what the character of the Ghost could be. And because we didn't understand that character so well, the words don't always ring super well and the performance didn't have the writing that it needed either."

Dinklage was not able to return to voice Ghost for Destiny's expansion due to other commitments. For consistency, Bungie replaced Dinklage's original voice work - Dinklebot - with new recordings from Nolan North. While the squeakier, more friendly-sounding Northbot hasn't gone down well with all Destiny players, I've gotta say I personally like a lot of the new lines with a bit of humour to them.

"Do you ever wish we hadn't woken the Hive?" Northbot asked me today. "Oh, but think of all the fun we've had with those guys!"