Is anyone else just not that excited for this? (Destiny)

by Ragashingo , Official DBO Cryptarch, Friday, September 05, 2014, 10:26 (3732 days ago) @ car15

It looks fun, and the beta was a blast... But I just don't have much hype for this thing. I'm trying to figure out why. The new live action trailer did nothing for me. The game doesn't seem to live up to Bungie's promises in terms of story or scope. It just seems like a fun weekend time-waster that I'll get bored with after a couple months.

I'm excited. For a few reasons:

1. The beta was a blast. One of my small reservations about Destiny was the worry that it'd feel wrong. Aiming down the sight, faster movement. These strange vertical movement modes. I was a bit afraid it'd be Call of Warfare or something. But nope, it felt great. And I even liked the multiplayer after hating it for a day. So, the core gameplay and shooting and moving is as good as any Bungie game. Maybe even better. If you don't care about any of the rest, knowing that Destiny is fun moment to moment is a pretty good mark in its favor.

2. I think this really is the game Bungie has wanted to make for a long long time. Go back and watch Halo's original announcement on the stages of Macworld. Jason Jones is up there talking about how Halo will be this vast, connected, coop game that you'll play with your friends. Halo was great. I specifically bought two consoles for it. But it wasn't that original vision. Destiny is much closer. We all know they went independent again to make Destiny, but I think it's more than that. I think they went independent because they now had the tools and talent and technology to finally make the game they'd always wanted to make.

The closest we've seen to that from Bungie in the last decade is Halo 2. Halo 2 obviously had its problems, but it was also a wide ranging, story packed, graphically impressive space opera of a game that set the tone and direction of the Halo franchise from then on. If Destiny turns out to be another Halo 2, broken ending an all, I'd be super happy.

3. Despite the small amount of story we got in the beta, I think Destiny is going to be more story-y than Halo. Look at Halo 1. It had a simple but effective story, but what did we know at the end of it? Did we know the motivations of The Covenant as a whole or its individual races? No. Did we know ANYTHING about the UNSC or Humanity other than short intro in the manual telling how the Pillar of Autumn fled a military planet called Reach? No. Did we know anything about the Forerunner other than they built the Halos and killed both the Flood and themselves with them? No. It's almost shocking how little we knew at the end of the first game.

Now look at Destiny. Sticking with only in game sources I can tell you that:

- The Fallen are space pirates with a rigid and sometimes humiliating rank structure who scavenge technology and who worship strange spherical "machine gods" who sometimes feats or absorb or power up on their souls.
- The Hive are a combative race who have burrowed into our moon, who build temples to their heroes, and who have one hero in particular, Crota, who was said to have killed a thousand Guardians with his sword.
- Humanity was visited by an object called The Traveler, had a golden age of exploration and colonization, was never destroyed by something call The Darkness, and is now venturing back out seeking to explore and find the strength necessary to resist The Darkness a second time.

And that's before the game is even out. Halo is a great series, but try telling someone who hasn't played it that they need to read at least The Fall of Reach and Contact Harvest to have a real understanding of the good guys and bad guys and see what happens.

4. Not only is Destiny the game Bungie wanted to make, it's also whatever it wants to be. The merger of scifi and fantasy that Destiny is doing provides for a huge range of storytelling and gameplay opportunities. Space pirates, seemingly undead zombies, an unstoppable expansionist military force, time traveling robots, a returning ancient enemy, and possibly dragons are day one for Destiny, but there's no way it ends there. The possibilities are wide open.

A game that plays very well, will be supported for a long time, and seems to have huge story potential beneath the surface? By my favorite game developer who has not made a bad game in over a decade? How can I not be excited?