So Destiny is at the end of its life now. June 9th is the final update.

Hearing this has me looking back and thinking about the journey that was Destiny. My many frustrations through the years are well represented in the forum here, but so are many of the highs. And man, those highs were so good, and remain nearly exclusive in all of video games for just how much fun it was.

Running Skolas for weeks to help folks for the Triumph. My first blind raid, King's Fall. The spacewalk in Deep Stone Crypt. The surprise Black Spindle mission. Running Crucible for weeks to get Luna's Howl. Running tons of Gambit to fight the Meatball to get Malfeasance. Entering the Dreadnaught for the first time, which felt like the first time Destiny really started to lived up to what it could be. Even the smaller moments of mystery, like when the roaming House of Wolves Fallen started showing up before that expansion dropped. Hell, there's so much stuff I feel like I could write pages about it. Trying to get that damn shotgun from Escalation Protocol on Mars. Even as frustrating as that was, I look back on it now with more fondness than annoyance.

For all its faults, Destiny was journey filled with amazing moments, and I find myself looking back with incredible fondness for just what the game was at its best, and now that it's coming to and end, I miss it more than I anticipated. Even when I wasn't playing for years, it was sort of a comfort, knowing it was there.

I'm still not sure Destiny ever lived up to its original promise, and it never fully managed to capture that early mystery where it felt like anything was possible. Looking back, though, Destiny was far more good than bad, and when it was good, it was unlike anything else I've ever played.

I'm looking forward to giving it one final hurrah on June 9th. Here's to hoping Bungie finds a way forward and can continue to build on what they accomplished with Destiny.

Same. A number of my fondest memories involved you, cheapLEY, along with others here. It feels like Alderaan has been destroyed. Maybe most of us were off planet, but where is home now?

I'm glad Destiny will stay online for however long. I'll not encourage Cody by saying he was right, but he always had a point. There are experiences we can never have again because this was a live service game. On the other hand, if we want, we can play through most of the D1 mainline story again. (narcogen and Blackstar just did it on their channel.) My biggest disappointment is about what is gone forever in D2. I never felt the same way about the game after that. Maybe that decision had to be made, and the business of game-building demanded it, etc., but business decisions got them to that place, and now business decisions got them to this place. To my acquaintances still at Bungie, I don't blame you. I keep thinking about the Halo 2 documentary, and the lack of workable plan. That seems like a pattern. Ultimately, that is management's fault. Just because the tornado assembled the cathedral a few times doesn't mean you can count on it.

It must be said, on some level, there are factors outside of management's control. The changing nature of the game business and gamers' expectations. The changing nature of the world--phrases like "touch grass" to me speak to a shift. I think many of us realize the downsides of living online. I'll be thinking about my relationship to this hobby and this community for a long time. Maybe I'll write more about that at some point, but for now, I can't quite believe that one of the anchors of my life the last 25 years might be as ephemeral as it now feels. I've made some real friends. That's not nothing. I'm probably going to play some Destiny today. I'm also going to go outside.

Kerm

I hope some of the API wizards work up a way to look back. I remember some of the people who were in the group of us that ran Vault of Glass for days (weeks?) to get that first full flawless, but I don't fully trust my memory on it. Stuff like that would be a neat way to reflect.

I hope the devs, (all of them: the ones blindsided by this, the ones that knew it before the others, the ones that were already let go in the many layoffs past) I hope they all manage to find peace and comfort in knowing, despite whatever the hell the execs threw at them, that they helped build an absolute "Good Times Machine". The sheer amount of awesome memories I have with DBOers (and others) only possible through this game is astounding.

I cold-turkey'd D2 after the Final Shape layoffs, yet not once did I regret having this decade of baggage with this franchise. I will forever miss it dearly, and I will always mourn what it could've been, but thank you for the ride. May you all land on your feet and keep rocking.

…I hope CruelLegacy is still dancing away.