Bungie's Destiny: "Absolutely no plans to charge a subscription fee"

February 17th, 2013, 23:23 Posted By: wraggster

Bungie's future rests on Destiny; we get a glimpse of what Activision calls the first "shared world shooter"
Bungie has begun unveiling Destiny, the grand game project that's been in the works for years. The future for Bungie, and a significant part of Activision's future, is depending on the success of this game. Bungie and Activision brought members of the press to Seattle to start revealing information about the game and to create some excitement and anticipation for Destiny. The process also raised many questions that have yet to be answered.
A full day of meetings were held for the assembled press, beginning in mid-morning and lasting until mid-afternoon. After a tour of Bungie's studio, Bungie COO Pete Parsons and several key Bungie employees discussed major aspects of Destiny. Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg joined them for a question-and-answer session. The most curious feature of this entire day was that no actual gameplay was shown; the closest we came was a few seconds of in-engine footage to demonstrate a feature of the new graphics engine.
What is Destiny? The next game from Bungie is "ambitious in its scope, innovative and creative in its approach, elevated in its tone, and is the kind of ass-kicking trek through the universe that only Bungie could create," said Hirshberg. "Very few games transcend their medium and their genre to truly become part of popular culture. We believe that Destiny could become one of those rare games."

Destiny's more than just Halo on steroids, though. "As we saw Destiny coming together, we realized that it didn't belong to a genre that we could quite pin down," Hirshberg said. "It has elements of a first-person shooter, it has elements of an open-world sandbox, and it has elements of a persistent world, and brings them all together in a new way that seems very fresh. We realized that to refer to Destiny as any one of these pre-existing genres is almost to under-promise or undersell the experience we think it could bring to gamers. We realized that we needed to coin a new phrase and a new way to reference what this game is. I think what Bungie is creating with Destiny is the world's first shared world shooter."

The game takes place in the future, on Earth and throughout the Solar System, in a style art director Christopher Barrett calls 'mythic science fiction.' Players will take on the role of a Guardian of Earth's last city, fighting against a variety of aliens amid the shattered remnants of an interplanetary empire. The settings revealed through concept art appear vast and awe-inspiring, evoking a sense of wonder and a desire to explore. Barrett noted that they have generated more concept art for this game than for all previous Bungie games put together.
Bungie co-founder and project director Jason Jones said that "we're doing something really ambitious, and I hope by the end you'll agree it's a little crazy." Jones started off with a simple declaration: "If you enjoy first-person shooters, Destiny's going to be the best first-person shooter you've ever played." Bungie is looking to create a much broader appeal, though, by including many more (unspecified) elements to the game that will have a broad appeal. Destiny will (somehow) let players of all skill levels have fun, so you won't need to be an FPS expert to jump in and have a good time. From all the deliberately vague descriptions of the gameplay, it seems like Bungie wants Destiny to appeal to a much broader audience than just Halo or Call of Duty players. "Absolutely," Bungie's Parsons agreed. He's a fan of World of Warcraft, and Skyrim, and other games, and he hopes that the range of experiences in Destiny will bring in many gamers who are not classic FPS players.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...s-on-this-game

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