At the weekend Bungie officially revealed Destiny - their next IP. While some concepts and details were leaked and highly speculated a more concrete story came on Sunday.
It’s called Destiny, and is the Halo project predecessor. It’s the got the backing of Activision and will push to current and next generation consoles. The project will last a minimum of 10 years - lets hope it works out.
The game was almost always going to be a FPS, it made sense. Bungie, no matter which side of the argument you’re on, changed FPS shooters for better and for always. For the rather talented team to tackle something else would be a very risky venture indeed. Despite it still being an FPS it looks, and sounds, like it’s going to play very differently indeed. At the press event there could have been a lot more given away however it would seem the game is going to evolve on the current state of the MMO. It looked like a large world where players matched beneath the surface and seamlessly integrated into the same world. It seems they’re not running of the server model though and so how they structure the total mass of players will be interesting to see. With online shooters as they exist today the peer model makes games massively expandable and very flexible to the total number of players online at that time. Every 8 players = Add a new game, simple. With this tough I can see it being somewhat more complex, they’re going to need to keep players campaigns in sync or exist in some form of harmony at least. This is going to be really challenging, this was made quite clear at the press event, however if they can make it work then it’s going to be revolutionary.
The visual style also looks great, it was described as blend between Halo and Mass Effect - a game with an outstanding visual appeal. The concept art looks very interesting indeed - I was also pleased to see more fantasy/rural settings (even though it’s set in a city). It’s set in the last city on earth but I’m going to try and avoid story details - I find that ‘over researching’ before the games release can totally damage the game before it’s even been released. I’m going to take an interest in the technology side but aim to reduce exposure to leaked/non bungie coverage.
On a final note, I couldn’t help but note some of the tech covered in the video. There was clearly an app for iOS in development alongside main game. I’m going to take a guess that this will be used during the game to view stats or meet up with friends. There was a big emphasis on seamless menus or just a lack of them. It sounded like the player was to totally removed from any technical details - an interesting move too. I like the idea but in practise, my favourite games at the moment are all reasonably technically 'involved’, Frozen Synapse comes to mind.
As long as I can use Bumper Jump or Recon as my button layout in the new game I’ll be happy! Bungie are back?