In a recent interview with Game Informer, senior designer Sage Merrill revealed that earlier in development Bungie focused on a different Warlock subclass before settling on the Stormcaller. They had time to make the change because the new subclasses in The Taken King started development as early as last year when Destiny was first released. Merrill also revealed there was a fourth class that never made it into the game.
For the third Warlock subclass, Bungie thought to create a Necromancer type character that could raise fallen enemies from the dead and bring them back under the Warlock’s control on the battlefield. The idea was ultimately replaced by the current Stormcaller subclass that focuses on chain lightning. The Necromancer idea isn’t totally dead though, Merrill said they would like to revisit it at some point.
Merrill also talked about a fourth class that never made it into the game, “In very early Destiny, we had four character classes we were trying to design around, but that fourth one just never fit so we cut down to three. When we made that cut everything sort of fell into place. It’s not like anything wasn’t working, it’s just that when you start to slice up the total space for what a class does in a shooter environment, no matter where you put that fourth class it always sort of felt like it was encroaching on what the other classes did.”
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Destiny: The Taken King launches September 15th on PS4, Xbox One, PS3, and Xbox 360.