E3 2014: Destiny is This Years Must Have Game

If there is one game that became an instant star at last years E3 Expo, it was Bungie’s re-emergence on the scene with their newest title, Destiny. Now that there has been much more shown of this game at this years E3, it’s safe to say that Destiny has the potential to be this years absolute must have title.

Destiny is set on a post apocalyptic Earth years after the arrival of a mysterious alien artifact known as the Traveler. As large as a small moon, the spherical Traveler brought new life into our solar system, bringing rain to Mars and cleansing the sky over Venus, turning it into lush jungles. However, just as the Traveler brought a new golden age to humanity, an ancient enemy found humanity as well, and nearly destroys the entire race. It brings a number of alien species to Earth and scatters them around the last surviving human city, which is a walled citadel protected by the Guardians, who you join at the onset of the game.

In Destiny, one of the coolest things you will be able to do is to make your character your own. Bungie is outfitting Destiny with a wide customization kit for your character, giving the player the power to create their own character entirely unique. Players will be able to first select the class of your character, whether it be a Warlock, a mystic warrior capable of great acts of devastation, the Titan who have lightning charged fists and possess armour and shields that make them nearly invincible, or the Hunter who are quick on the trigger and deadly with a blade, stalking the battlefield looking for prey. Beyond that you can customize the look of your character and over the course of the game you will earn armour, weapons and other assorted bits of awesome that will make your time in Destiny unique from another players. This feature is always incredibly popular and can be found in many other games like Fallout and Mass Effect.

Graphically this should be a stunner; not surprisingly as Bungie is known for creating visually beautiful games. The original Halo was ahead of its time graphically and the company only upped the ante when they released Halo 2. Destiny will be no slouch either as Bungie has promised 1080p and 30-frames-per-second on the current-gen systems, which is due to Microsoft boosting the consoles GPU power. Currently, many multi-platform games including Battlefield 4 and Call of Duty: Ghosts run in a higher resolution on PS4 than the Xbox One, but it seems the days where Sony held the graphical advantage over Microsoft may be numbered.

If there is one thing Bungie is known for, its multiplayer. Bungie is teaming with Activision so you can be rest assured that the two titans of mulitplayer will bring a great experience to the console. They have also designed a way of finding out what is going on online with The Director which gives a great overview of what’s going on in the world and what is currently available to you which looks incredibly stylish and shows worlds to explore in a quick and easy fashion. Even as you are wandering in the massive open worlds of Destiny, you will be able to join public events to earn experience and cool gear. Also, there will be a mode that you can enter into called ‘Strike’ where you will be able to test your Guardian with friends against wave after wave of enemies and then put them to the ultimate test against a final boss in a 30 minute mini-dungeon for loot and experience points. To put your Guardian up against others in competitive online gaming there is The Crucible, which will likely be a place where most gamers will be losing countless hours putting their Guardian through fierce firefights and endless battles. There is also Patrol, a mode for a completely undirected experience unrelated to the Campaign mode where you are able to explore the immense worlds that Bungie has created to discover easter eggs. Needless to say, online gaming will be going to another level with Destiny’s in depth online capabilities.

The Tower is going to be a fun place for everyone to meet in what will become the games social hub. This is going to be the point where players can mingle in a third person view to show off their customizations on their avatars in and around a marketplace that will allow users to trade and upgrade equipment, which will be a familiar concept for players who have experienced the sprawling cities that inhabit World of Warcraft. This is all part of what Bungie is calling a “shared world shooter”. This seems to be incorporating quite a few RPG elements and MMO elements into what could have been just a standard FPS. By including these elements, it’s clear Bungie is looking to raise the bar for the FPS genre which has become littered with Call of Duty clones over the last few years.

It seems like the company has found the perfect balance of elements from other games to move the genre forward. There is going to be Halo for the classic fighting style and the architectural style of the world (featuring some industrial human ruin and alien architecture here and there), and Borderlands-style customization and exploration and incorporating elements of World of Warcraft for its mix of open world exploration and dungeon arcade style encounters. Taking into consideration the scale of the world, Destiny is most close in size to Skyrim, though I imagine with current-gen technology and the use of the Cloud, the game may even dwarf Skyrim.

Still, the question everyone will be asking up until release though will be, “Can Destiny meet the hype that it is has created?” This is a game that has been in development for over ten years now and it’s quite clear that Bungie isn’t rushing anything to market in order to make a few bucks. In any case, excitement is building and we’ll have more updates for you following the release of the beta on July 17th.

Destiny is scheduled for release September 9th, 2014 on PS3, PS4, Xbox 360 and Xbox One.