Bungie reveals Destiny to a horde of waiting fans

Dark Patrol

Bungie have finally revealed their new cross platform game. We haven't had a drink of Bungie goodness since the brilliant Halo: Reach game was released three years ago (it seems so long ago!).

Now, after months of speculation about the title, a massive hint hidden in plain sight in Halo 3: ODST and long bouts of silence, Bungie have officially revealed Destiny as their new game.

Check out this vidoc, Pathways out of Darkness:



Game Informer describes Destiny:

"Destiny takes place on the planet Earth, but well into the future when a mysterious weapon destroyed most of the planet and its inhabitants at the end of humanity’s Golden Age. One city remains, however, surviving thanks to the intervention of The Traveler. The Traveler is a gigantic moon shaped ship that looms over the Earth’s last surviving city. No one knows what The Traveler is, or where it came from, but it saved humanity by making sure a small population survived.

Guardians will be fully customised for Destiny

Players take on the roles of The Guardians, the protectors of the city who receive power from the Traveler. Each player creates his or her own guardian and can customize everything about them, including their appearance, class, weapons, and ship. Bungie didn’t divulge the differentiations between each class, but it spoke of hunters, titans, and warlocks. As a protector of the city, you live in a persistent and changing world, venturing into the Earth’s ruins on missions to explore and collect loot. You can even venture outside of Earth to visit the other planets of our solar system like Venus and Mars. Ambiguous powers emanate from The Traveler, empowering Earth’s Guardians with a magical force."

A first person shooter (and praise the Prophets it's not an MMO), it's like nothing that has ever been before. Destiny's concept is simply amazing in that it is an attempt to bring in a new era of co-operative game play:

"Every player is on his or her own adventure, but paths will cross. Bungie didn’t show how this process works firsthand, but the closest comparison seems to be the innovative multiplayer in 2012’s Journey. Bungie described an elaborate scenario where two guardians meet in the city and decide to head to a location on Mars called the Dust Palace in order to hopefully find worthwhile loot. The two jump in a space ship and head toward the planet, passing by The Traveler as they head to Mars. Once there, they encounter one of many enemy types called the Cabal. The two hold out as best they can against these powerful enemies, when a player who was also on a trip to Mars joins their fray. As Bungie describes it, this new Guardian’s appearance is a product of matchmaking that happens in the background with no intervention from the player." Source: Game Informer

It will take a lot to top the Halo series (only cross platform war games with serious advertising budgets such as Call of Duty / Modern Warfare beat it sales wise) and people will be looking to Bungie to do just that.  Destiny is however going to be a cross platform game (Xbox and Play Station) so they have a real chance to top it, at the least sales wise.

So while the ideas behind Destiny sound epic, the realization of it will be in the game's execution, and indeed the winning over of Bungie's long time fans, and of course bringing in a few new ones as well.

It will also be interesting where the classic Halo fan now goes (and stays). Will they stay with the Halo series after the success of Halo 4 or will they be tempted to the Dark Side by Bungie's new wares? I imagine the guys at HBO will be torn (well actually not, they already have destiny.bungie.org all prepared).  I for one will be dipping my toes in both pools as I really enjoyed Halo 4 and am keen to see where 343 takes the game.

So dear Bungie  fan, what do you think of Bungie's announcement?