Bungie's recently released Destiny has had a lot of hype, marketing, and discussion surrounding it, not the least of which is around what exactly it is. On one hand, Bungie and Activision have used creative terms like "Shared World Shooter" that sound nice but do a poor job of conveying what it is. On the other end, gamers have largely opted for some combination of their favorite, critically acclaimed games. It's hard to say which is more accurate because
Destiny does a lot of things well and will likely be enjoyed by a great many people for a great many reasons. Except story; nobody will like it for the story.
Destiny is a hodgepodge of different concepts and ideas, implemented with a near flawless craftsmanship that is an admirable new high for a studio already known for excellence. Where the game could easily have been just a slightly grander
Halo game, it instead brings a vast world full of wonders and secrets to seek out, and what has the potential to be a grand adventure ark with you and your friends as the heroes of the universe.
At first glance, the game looks to be an MMOFPS. On a fundamental level, the goal is to complete tasks and missions in an effort to level up and claim better gear, with countless others doing the same. Where the game differs is that it does away with the large empty spaces of most MMOs, opting instead for smaller, instanced, and highly detailed spaces. In the background, the game is constantly searching for other gamers who are playing in similar areas of the game, and then maintaining a steady group in the game world. This creates the feeling that there is an army of gamers constantly running about and fighting for the survival of humanity.
Throughout the game, there's never an effort to make the player feel particularly unique, just important. While this may seem like a step backwards, this maintains the sense that everything a player does is important without creating a sense of false uniqueness. Nobody is "The Hero," but rather everyone shares in the heroism, making it feel a little more genuine.
Generally, this presents one of the largest problems for many MMOs, which is that it's hard to create a vast world populated with other players doing the exact same thing while still making each of them feel particularly important. Like many parts of
Destiny, this is an area where Bungie makes a big step forward, but in this case, there was a casualty.
Those familiar with Bungie's previous works would probably expect exemplary characters and an epic, if potentially simple plot. Picking the proper color shaders for your gear will probably be more painstakingly thoughtful and all together more significant than anything that happens in the story. After nearly 20 hours of play, only six plot characters are introduced, including the protagonist and their Ghost, none of which are even given a name.
There are other characters in the game though they are either NPC vendors, quest givers, or both, and while almost all of these characters have names, they have no appreciable personality to speak of. Further information is available about the world and most of the characters through the use of the Grimoire, which can only be read at Bungie.net or through the
Destiny mobile app. Occasionally this reading is interesting, but for the most part, it is as compelling as watching a muted movie and reading the script to figure out what's going on.
Thankfully, almost every other aspect of the game is superb. In lieu of a meaningful story, the main pull of the game is leveling up, claiming better gear, exploring, and tackling even tougher enemies. In the beginning, the gear takes a backseat while you come to grips with leveling up and mastering game mechanics, but later on, the game will be focused almost exclusively on gear. Once the level cap of 20 is reached, the only way to improve a character is to seek out gear containing Light. Trying to balance improving character attributes against the other important qualities of equipment is tough, but the effort makes each piece kept feel significant. In addition, weapons and armor drop infrequently and they can't be traded between players, making each item pick up a truly exciting event.
Destiny's locations are even more compelling. Every location is unique and identifiable with little wasted space between structures and settlements. The landscape is perfectly designed so that each area is easily recognizable and creating a mental map of how each area is connected comes quickly. Returning to each location after finishing the game is a blast since it allows you to shrug off enemies and explore each area deeply. An unfortunate side effect is that you'll pass the same area potentially dozens of times just trying to get to a mission objective. It's a frustrating time waster that could have benefitted from a planetary fast travel system or the ability to land in more than just one place per planet.
The various enemies of the game work well together and it's hard to feel cheated when they get the better of you. There's some parity between the members of the different enemy species, but each is different enough to be interesting and encourage Guardians to stay sharp. With the exception of the bosses, most are difficult because they are fast and nimble, capable of dodging or teleporting behind cover if their shields fail while using different abilities to suppress incoming attack.
Bosses are another matter entirely. Some bosses are capable of eating up thousands of rounds before they go down, causing fights to drag on for as long as ten minutes at a time. Upon failure, your fireteam starts back at the beginning of the encounter, potentially going through those ten minutes during each attempt only to fail at the end. When coupled with the somewhat frequent waves of minor enemies that will spawn throughout the battlefield in an effort to dislodge campers, these encounters can get very tense. This tension can be good when successful, but on occasion, it can easily run the risk of feeling insufferable and unreasonable.
Dispatching enemies is quite a joy with some of the most fluid shooting in any game, though the offerings aren't quite as robust as other games The game starts off with a simple assortment of weapons that make you feel like a novice though able fighter before working up to the slightly more exotic weapons and special abilities that you'll wield.
At first, the abilities will seem like a waste of time and a bit clumsy, but after mastering them, it's hard not to appreciate them. These abilities mix up the very streamlined gunplay and add a whole lot of bang to the proceedings. Each character gets a glide that functions like a jet pack and a set of three special abilities. The nuance between each class and subclass comes in what functions each of these abilities serves and how gear is picked to prioritize their cooldown.
Ultimately, the abilities are a fun way of putting super powers in a game, but the differences between each character class only become important during the late game, post-game, or PVP matches in the Crucible. Where this provides for great fun when playing regular missions, this creates a familiar problem with PVP.
When playing in
Destiny's PVP arena, many level advantages are disabled, but there's still a certain level of unevenness. Like any game where equipment is unlockable and loadouts are allowed in game, new players are constantly confronted with things that they have no access to or don't understand. When PVP starts out with such differences between characters, it's hard to call the result balanced, which is all the more frustrating in a game that is so mechanically sound. The gameplay can be quite fun and tense within the Crucible, just don't expect a tightly tuned competitive experience.
Obtaining the Platinum trophy in
Destiny is going to be quite a time consuming endeavor. At a minimum, the game requires at least 50-60 hours just to complete one subclass for each class, before even getting to what will likely prove to be some very tough trophies. There's a set of trophies both for finishing Strikes and Raids, which each require a well-coordinated team of three or six people respectively, but also for doing them without a single member of your team dying throughout the potentially hour long endeavor. Aside from some simple "kill x of y" trophies, the list is rounded out by a set of PVP trophies, only one or two of which might prove to be problematic.
Destiny is a bold new world in some senses, though lacking in some others. It's likely most will find one aspect of the game or another if it's given enough time to get its hooks in, but if gamers looking for a little bit of story to their
Destiny might find that the game gives you little reason to play. The game is thoroughly enjoyable for those content to make their own stories while exploring a rich new world with expertly executed gameplay mechanics.
The reviewer spent around 25 hours playing the game and unlocked 15 of Destiny's 42 trophies. He got a Warlock to level 22 after playing each mission and more than a few matches in the Crucible. The copy of the game used for review was purchased by the reviewer.
4.0