Following the leaking of videos from the Alpha version of Bungie's long-awaited Destiny, lead game designer Luke Smith has taken it upon himself to explain how the game will be structured. The leaked gameplay has now been taken offline, although various NeoGaf users have stored the images in GIF form. In a follow-up post, Smith notes that the footage has caused "a lot of confusion" and admits that Bungie "haven't done the best job ever of explaining the game or its structure." He went onto provide the below overview of the game's campaign and online features. We've attempted to build a suite of activities that can suit a variety of moods (I want something challenging! I want to chill out with my friends! I want to see where the story goes next! I want to shoot other players!, I want the game to be a cruel dominatrix! et cetera) These activities come in a bunch of flavors: Story missions - soloable activities (you can still play them in groups of up to 3!), often with ties to the main story arc of Destiny (the campaign). These activities appear at various Levels (numerical, relative to the player) and choosing a higher level (relative to you) means you're opting in for some additional challenge. Strikes - 3 player activities, with bosses and loot at the end. Their goal is a highly replayable activity that will - at higher levels - lead you into the loot game. Explore - cruise around the surface of a planet in Fireteams of up to 3, taking odd jobs and tasks for the City. You can find minerals and resources out in the world that you'll have some use for as you find weapons in Destiny that you want to stick with. This is a lower intensity activity Raids - 6 player, cooperative required, communication required gameplay. High challenge. We haven't talked much about this yet and I'm not going start that conversation here on NeoGAF. Multiplayer This is for the "shoot other players" mood. Smith also explains how the world has been built around these activities. We've structured Destiny's world to have places where you will probably intersect with other players, and places where you won't. We're not going to have players drop into the climax of a mission, but the common landing zones for a given planet? That seems like a great place to see other players running amok in the world. Regardless of what activity you're playing (PVP aside), you'll see players on their own activities, i.e., players beginning a Strike might see a guy collecting Relic Iron on Mars, and a Public Event begins and suddenly everyone is distracted to take down a key Cabal target for a chance at powerful gear and materials to upgrade your best weapons and armor. Source OXM
