DAY OF DESTINY: A GUIDE TO BUNGIE'S NEXT GREAT FPS HOPE Now we know how Bungie must have felt. Game writers walked out of the first reveal feeling a bit bamboozled; so many grand promises, but what actually was the Halo developer making here? Borderlands in space? A Halo MMO? As we all struggled to wrestle meaning out of Destiny's ephemeral concepts, we couldn't help but fall back on the two absolute certainties of the project to rationalise our excitement: it's being made by the studio who brought you the (best) Halo games, and it's being backed by the publisher who has all that Call Of Duty dollar. Any more was basically speculation, because Bungie was being so vague about it all. Now we've played Destiny extensively during its alpha and beta phases, found the best dancing spots and the hardest to reach hidden caves, learned the crucible (aka multiplayer) maps and maxed out at level eight... well, we're a bit lost for words too. Turns out the next big thing in first-person shooters doesn't lend itself to elevator pitches all that well. Fine, fine, we'll try. Destiny takes the stellar weapon feedback, health/armour system, huge outdoor environments and smart enemy design that the good name of Halo is built upon, and fires it out into space where you'll bump into other players on distant planets - and an unfamiliar version of our own. And yes, it plays a bit like borderlands in that there's a glorious jamboree of hit points cascading from enemies as you shoot them, you'll encounter them in similarly expansive locations and you can see how powerful they are relative to you. That last part's a deceptively killer feature actually - we spent upwards of an hour in the tundra of Old Russia trying to sneak past Acolytes and Dregs who were literally immune to our bullets, because just imagine what enemies like that are guarding. As it turned out, they were guarding even more enemies including a shielded orb called a Shrieker who promptly tore us apart for indulging our exploratory urge, but it was wondrous rather than frustrating to peer at the parts of the world we clearly weren't supposed to be poking around in yet. It's nice to be met with fearsomely powerful enemies who you know you'll one day crush, rather than an invisible wall. Again as with borderlands, loot is all-important. It's broken down into regular items which you'll find just about anywhere, rarer green items which have upgrade slots and can thus be improved by spending Glimmer on them, and still rarer items which are sold by Vanguards on the tower once you complete bounties for them. What on the what, using what? Okay, Glimmer is the in-game currency, Vanguards are high-ranking Guardians (the good guys) who sell cool kit, and the tower is the last safe place on earth - the one place the traveller can still protect, and more saliently the place you visit to buy stuff. Do try to keep up. No wonder Bungie kept things vague until now - you could lose a week just telling someone about the tower, and where the various merchants can be found. but if you do that, you haven't told them about your Sparrow, a personal vehicle which can be summoned in the field for awesome cinematic getaways when the firefights get a bit too tasty. Or the way the world's populated by random strangers even while playing story missions, and sometimes high-level Guardians just appear, save your *** from some rampant level eight Wizards, and disappear into the sunset on their Sparrows. No - start on the details and you'll never stop. It's best to take Bungie's lead and stick to wonderful platitudes like "a new experience every night," and "a world players want to be in." Over the course of the beta four maps were available across Earth, Mars, Venus and the Moon. All reiterate the studio's incredible success with Halo multiplayer, but there are twists: certain vehicles have weapons, while others can be summoned whenever you wish. Plus unless you've bought some shiny Crucible-only firearms from the Tower (which quickly become crucial), the guns you carry are the same ones you just used in single-player, so loot takes on an even greater importance. Movement speed and gravity are very similar to Halo so some of your skills will be transferable, but as the weapon set isn't standardised don't expect to employ the same tactics and prevail. Crucible feels balanced and polished already, but it's the cooperative multiplayer that really impresses. We played in the same three-man fireteam throughout all five story missions, and felt a more meaningful experience come out of it than Borderlands could muster. You might recognise those as two of Bungie's seven core pillars. they're arguably the most important. With regard to the latter, Destiny's melting pot of sci-fi expertise, religious undertones, and the wonder of a half-lost civilisation is a real success in terms of atmosphere and storytelling, dialled-in Dinklage voice acting notwithstanding. There are strong Halo nods to its narrative beats - and so many evil floating spheres - but there's enough depth to the world-building to fulfil that 'Skyrim with guns' dream we've all had since 2011. Really. And then there's the most mysterious of all Bungie's soothsayer routines, "A new experience every night." That one's still open to interpretation, though Crucible mode is a good way to mix things up. Source: CVG
