Bungie's Destiny 'quite like Halo' - Report

November 7, 2012 4:48AM PST

By Eddie Makuch, News Editor

Demonware employee supposedly demoed Bungie's new game, finding it to resemble studio's prior body of work.

 

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Bungie's next game, rumored to be titled Destiny, is reportedly not very different than the company's most famous body of work: Halo. Internet super sleuth Superannuation dug up a blog entry from a Demonware employee atKotaku, who wrote about the day he spent at Bungie, including a description of the studio's new game as "still quite like Halo."

This person, reportedly a senior Demonware employee, described Destiny as boasting cooperative gameplay and numerous alien gun battles. He added that its sense of exploration was a strong point. Overall, though, he said "there is a lot of work still to be done."

 

He also claimed he was shown a video that demonstrated a live game game scene that featured numerous atmospheric items, including "huge amounts of trees and foliage," as well as particle effects, dynamic lighting, and a day-night cycle. Lastly, he wrote about Beatles member Paul McCartney's involvement with Destiny, which Bungie confirmed over the summer.

Demonware is an Activision-owned online software and services company. It has contributed to a range of Activision franchises like Call of Duty and Transformers and lists Bungie as one of its partners.

Destiny is Bungie's first project as part of a 10-year publishing deal with Call of Duty company Activision. Legal documents from May suggestthat this game will release for the Xbox 360 and that console's successor in 2013, with a 2014 release slated for PlayStation 3.

By Eddie Makuch, News Editor

Eddie Makuch (Mack-ooh) is a News Editor at GameSpot. He lives in Connecticut, works out of the company's New York City office, and loves extra chunky peanut butter.

Quick recap:

We have touchdown on Bungie's next game, ladies and gents. Its next gaming universe, rather. According to a contract revealed as part of Activision's on-going legal squabble with former Modern Warfare 2 developers, the Halo studio's mysterious "Destiny" project will see it releasing four "sci-fantasy, action shooter games" every other year from 2013 onwards.

Exciting, no? It gets better. As reported on the LA Times, the first of the Destiny titles will be a timed exclusive for Xbox 360 and - drum roll please - a console described as "Xbox 720". Microsoft's next Xbox - name and launch year confirmed? Not quite. The contract is dated 16th April 2010, leaving plenty of time for amendment since its devising, and may employ approximate terms for unannounced products.

Bungie will also produce four downloadable expansion packs code-named "Comet", released every other year, with the first arriving in 2014.


One more gobbet of heart-jumping news before you go: the document also reveals that Bungie is working on a successor to its 1994 hit Marathon, generally considered to be Halo's spiritual predecessor. It's unlikely to be a heavyweight effort, though - the studio is allowed to devote no more than five per cent of its staff to the project while under contract with Activision.

I had a think about the Destiny project in a feature earlier this year - Bungie's MMO: headshot or a shot in the dark? The game is confirmed to employ technology suited to the creation of large-scale worlds. Bungie has admitted that its Halo titles "grossly under-utilised" the Xbox 360 CPU.

Below are screens from a Bungie anniversary vidoc, thought to be Destiny teasers:

Important to note, this is all 2010 info, so could be inaccurate.

Overall I'm not suprised it could be a bit like Halo, it's basically confirmed to be slightly steampunk styled, Space is a big theme, and they want large open, dynamic worlds.

Saw a recent article that Bungie was hiring devs with PS3 experience. Looks like they decided to make a PS3 version after all...

If anything can end up being the "Halo-killer", it would be Bungies new IP. If it's on Sony's console too, even better.

As reported on the LA Times, the first of the Destiny titles will be a timed exclusive for Xbox 360 and - drum roll please - a console described as "Xbox 720"

All I needed to read. Its gonna be like Bioshock or Mass Effect. Itll end up being multiplat, but most gamers will associate the IP with the console most played it on in the first place.....Xbox.

Lets see what Bungie can do from scratch.

They still are hiring PS3 developers, I absolutely believe that after a potential exclusivity period (if it still counts), which was most likely made due to the fact that Microsoft still hold a minority equity stake in Bungie, that it will come to PS3/Orbis.

Here :

Something tells me after playing Halo 4 and seeing just how much better 343i are than Bungie at their own game, Im worried Bungie will be viewed as lazy developers.

It really is one thing to create a new IP that defines a genre for years with huge selling power. Totally another thing to improve on what already exists.

On the shoulders of giants and all that jazz.

Oh goodie, more FPS's. We desperately need some more of those to fill the giant gap in the marketplace.

I figured it would be pretty obvious Bungies next game would be a shooter......

Blizzard has made games in different genres in its history, as well as Naughty Dog and plenty of other developers. Bungie just went with the "me too once more" choice. I understand that it has brought them great success, but I have no interest in Halo, much less in Halo-like games, which Destiny seems poised to be.

To be honest, apart from the Bioshock series I'm just not interested in FPS's. I would have liked to play a game from them in a different genre, as they seem to be that kind of developer that really polishes their games and I value that greatly. As it stands, I'll have to overlook them still.