Few arrivals in gaming history have been ushered into existence with quite the same level of scrutiny as Bungie's Destiny.
Apart from Bungie and its anxious paymasters at Activision, no-one will have watched the game's arrival with as much interest as 343 Industries. Located just eight miles from Bungie's offices, 343 is Microsoft's manufactured 'new Bungie,' a development studio entirely created to replace Bungie, when it quit the company's fold. 343's job is to take over the future of Halo, the franchise that Bungie created, and that made Bungie.
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For 343, Destiny's arrival carried a number of potential nightmare scenarios. If the game had been terrible, or sold badly, we might now be reading doomsday predictions about the future of space-shooters. Let us not pretend that Destiny is anything other than a successor to the original Halo games from Bungie, both stylistically and spiritually. If the game had been a commercial and creative triumph, Halo might have quickly seemed like a thing of the past, a herald for the arrival of the true space-shooter king.
As it is, things have worked out pretty perfectly for 343 Industries...
DESTINY SOLD REALLY WELL
Destiny's commercial success, including sales of $325 million in its first five days, is a clear sign that large numbers of people still want to play Halo-like shooting games in a sci-fi setting. This may seem like a constant given, but tastes change, especially during console transitions.
HYPE SPRINGS ETERNAL... STILL
Activision showed that an expensive and carefully staged hype campaign still works wonders. Lots of people were enthused by the hype and did not wait for reviews, many of which turned out to be negative.
In reality, Activision showed very little of Destiny before its launch, made a great deal about its high-level aspirations, and reaped major benefits. Even if you do not agree with the reviewers, it is certain that if the sub-80 percent reviews had been available on day one, that $325 million figure would have been diminished. Destiny is Bungie's lowest rated game since Oni, in 2001.
CENTRAL CHARACTERS HAVE APPEAL
One of the questions constantly put to Bungie execs in the run up to Destiny's launch was the lack of a central figure like Master Chief. The execs had a canned response about how the game was really about the player and his or her own identity. This is a reasonable direction to take.
However, Destiny's story, and the characters introduced throughout the game, were pretty yawn-inspiring. This was a surprise, given Bungie's pedigree with Master Chief whose stories, while convoluted and confusing, have always seemed appropriate to their setting and enjoyable in the moment.
Microsoft's 2014 play with the Halo franchise is a re-issue of the games associated with Master Chief, a reminder of the rich fictional world underpinning the franchise. Bungie tried to co-opt some of this heritage by talking up the Destiny narrative setting as a classic in the making, but the reality felt flat and empty. When it comes to personality, Halo still has a significant lead over Destiny.
BOLD NEW IDEAS, RIPE FOR REVISION
343 can make use of Bungie's innovations and shape them to their own designs, without looking like they have basically copied their rival's ideas. Destiny has innovated, but it has not innovated so far as to change the entire landscape of shooter design. No-one is really saying, 'how the hell is 343 going to top this?'
DESTINY HAS FAILED TO REWRITE THE RULES
Both these games have created enjoyable entertainment and, in their own ways, have progressed the idea of what video games can do. But the level of their progression is not so significant that developers working on other games have been caught unawares.
343 is a fairly new studio, and none of its work to date had come close to the demands placed upon it by Halo 5. But the 343 team members working eight miles down the road from Bungie should consider Destiny's launch, its successes and its failures, to be a win for their own project.
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