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Bungie hired Tobias from Arrested Development to write jokes for Destiny's script

Then used none of them.

David Cross, better known to Arrested Development fans as Tobias, was hired by Destiny developer Bungie to write jokes for the game's script, he's claimed.

But despite being headhunted and then flown to the developer's studio, none of Cross' work was used.

Cross and fellow US comedian Brian Posehn were asked to "punch up" the script for Dinklebot, aka Ghost, your mysterious robot sidekick voiced by a monotone Peter Dinklage.

"[We] jumped at the chance," Cross told IGN. "We were flown up to Bellevue, Washington to do a punch-up on the Ghost character in Destiny about a year ago. We were both very excited about it.

"They did not use a single, solitary thing that we wrote, which is a shame. [But] I would imagine somebody somewhere said, 'We can't inject this levity or humour into it.'

"It's a shame because I've played Destiny quite a bit. When it came out I was way into it and way excited about it, and when you're at hour 20 of that thing, it's like the Ghost is kind of monotone saying this thing, 'We must get over the ridge. That's the Cabal - we've got to defeat him.'

"Whatever, it's boring as s***, and I speak for myself and Brian, and I know thousands if not millions of other gamers would be like 'It would be nice to have a joke or something in there.'

"You think we're going to f*** with the tone? But it was very exciting to go up there and get paid to play a video game a year before it came out."

Cross explained that the lines he wrote were self-referential jokes that he thought gamers might appreciate. "We were there for a couple of days so we offered a bunch of stuff up," he recalled.

Maybe some jokes about opening doors? Or maybe they suggested that Bungie leave out the infamous "that wizard came from the Moon" line? Sadly, we'll probably never know.

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Tom Phillips avatar

Tom Phillips

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Tom is Eurogamer's Editor-in-Chief. He writes lots of news, some of the puns and makes sure we put the accent on Pokémon.

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