Destiny Beta Impressions

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Created on Sunday, 27 July 2014 19:42

Written by KTP

Destiny Beta ImpressionsThoughts on Bungie's new MMO shooter thing

It was oh so brief, but Bungie just gave open beta access to Destiny this weekend, I'm guessing to put some tweaks on their online stuff. I've gotten on both the PS3 and 360 to see how far they have strayed from the tried and true Halo formula that they have crafted over the years. It is most certainly ambitious, trying to take parts of an open world mission structure, mixed with spontaneous co-op, multiplayer deathmatches, and a story that is supposed to tie them all together. They are still trying to accomplish all of this with the standard of quality they performed with the Halo series. In the beta, we get a peek at all of this. Strangely, it kinda works.

The game starts you off in Old Russia, where decapitated cars and an abandoned, broken freeway give way to some abandoned facility. You encounter your first enemy, the fallen where you must fight through to get to a spaceship and make your way to the The Last City which acts as the hub of the game. From the ship, you can set out to the different story missions, Strikes (fireteam missions), free roam areas, and deathmatch. So far, the only places we have seen are Old Russia, and the Moon, but this is only the beta. Hopefully, we'll see a ton more places to explore.

It's like Rifts with that Halo thing.

If you were to make a list of all the features of the game, it would be an easy judgment to pass that it would be a mess and not work. Somehow, all these weird elements mesh together in a nice way. Roaming Old Russian and help out other wandering Guardians along the way to your own mission is a really cool feeling and not something a shooter should really be doing. Combat still feels right at home and should leave fans satisfied in that regard. It is important to say that for those wanting to jump right into the multiplayer from the start will need to get through a few missions first. It seems Bungie wants the story and your actions in it to encompass the experience. While the zones we had access to felt solid, it felt a little empty.

Content is going to be the biggest selling point and hopefully there is enough to keep it going for a good while. So far, Destiny is shaping up pretty well and hopefully, we will have a ton of content to roll around in at release.