Bungie’s Destiny May Redefine First-Person Shooters

By Nick Venable | Published

This article is more than 2 years old

I’m not a Halo fan, or a big player or the first-person shooter genre in general. I’m not saying anything negative about them. My talent is severely lacking anytime I attempt one. But I’ll definitely be willing to take on former Halo developer Bungie Studios’ long-awaited Destiny, so if you don’t hear from me for a few years after the game is released, tell my wife and daughter I did it to save their lives.

So, for the past six years, Bungie has been hard at work on the “mythic sci-fi universe” of Destiny, and apparently it will be less a single gaming experience and more of a life dedication that will place your character in a living world that adapts and changes over time randomly, so that you’ll never have the same gaming session twice. And what is that character doing? He’s a Guardian for the only city left on Earth, constantly battling to save it from evil alien races bent on destruction. And there’s a giant extra-terrestrial globe hovering right above the city, offering extra protection, and it’s what powers you. Check out the trailer and some behind-the-scenes info in the video below.

During a lull in the interplanetary wars, humanity conquered traveling through our solar system, so players can visit Mars, the Moon, Venus, etc. You can purchase and upgrade your ships through in-game wealth, and it appears winnings made while in the competitive multiplayer mode can transfer to the single-player story campaign. Again, since I’m bad at this kind of game, looks like I’ll be flying around in a Hooptie for my initial travels through space.

The story campaign isn’t even exactly single-player, but don’t go calling it an MMO, despite all the ways in which it resembles those kinds of games. Dubbed a “shared world shooter,” it’s a wide-open world where other players can jump in and out of your world in a seamless fashion, assisting you in missions when needed, or perhaps needing your assistance. Project director and Bungie co-founder Jason Jones says, “Destiny knows you’re tired, impatient, and distracted. Players don’t want to work hard. They don’t want to read. They don’t want to go to the Internet to figure out our bullshit.” So no raids. No guilds. No planning. Just grab-and-go online sandbox gaming.

So it’s got a great story and a play system that keeps things interesting and fluid — such as days and nights progressing in the same time span they normally do — as well as a socially invested multi-player angle that might revolutionize the future of playing with friends. But how does it look? Fucking amazing. Despite sticking to the current-gen consoles, the game has a new lighting engine that makes the contrast look as crisp as the first bite of an apple. [Destiny is rumored to be releasing on both current and next-gen consoles. – Ed.] Below is a pretty lengthy clip going over some of the eyeball-grabbing concept art released with the trailer. It’s just IGN’s video form of a photo gallery with commentary.

Though it isn’t looking like the game will get a 2013 release, 2014 is already looking a lot more interesting.