My overriding experience with Destiny has been one of isolation, exclusion and, if I’m honest, a little bit of loneliness.

Which isn’t how it was meant to be…

Released for consoles both previous and current-gen this month, Destiny arrived on the crest of an enormous wave of hype and excitement. The big post-Halo release from the heralded Bungie studio, Destiny was touted as the next evolution in online shooters.
The premise was that the developers had melded traditional shooter mechanics with character progression and storyline systems more commonly associated with MMO titles, creating a game the likes of whichwe had never seen before.

The idea is that both co-operative and Player Vs Player (PvP) encounters would be enhanced by a communal approach; with players coming together in small 3-man Fireteams to battle the game’s antagonists; the Fallen; or other player Fireteams, using a central hub-area (dubbed ‘The Tower’) to socialise, upgrade and form teams.

Visually, the game is staggering. The varied and meticulously detailed maps are universally atmospheric and admirable. Overlaid on them is a superb set of lighting and environmental engines, enhancing the atmosphere of the whole experience subtly but effectively. The initial tutorial mission is also well implemented from a combat-mechanics perspective; introducing the button layout, basic combat premises and weapon layouts pretty intuitively. Not only that, but it also takes the opportunity to show off the aforementioned visuals and technical mechanics at the same time. The part where your A.I. Ghost companion flies off into the dark to look for a light source and causes the lights to flick on and off to reveal progressive numbers of encroaching enemies, which is basic but effective stuff.

Character models are, in line with the environmentals, very impressive; though the very limited customisation options will leave many feeling a touch artistically bereft. There are three ‘races’ to choose from; your basic human, the Awakened, who are a grey-skinned, white-eyed variation on the basic human and the Exo, a race of robotic humanoids reminiscent of Halo’s Spartans if customised for raving. Each race can be customised at a very basic level, with hairstyles/colours, skin tones and the like interchangeable as is standard. However, beyond the basics, there’s little chance to really make your character your own. It’s known as the Warcraft syndrome and, while not a major issue, does kind of make it feel like you’re using an off the peg character rather than a personalised one.

But hey, character modifications are all very well, but at its heart Destiny is a shooter, damnit, and that’s what’s important right?

Well yes, about that…

Destiny really isn’t innovative in the way you might have hoped. I could be a very lazy journalist and ask ‘have you played Halo before? Well Destiny is just like that!’ and have done with it; but I’m a dedicated professional so let’s get to breaking it down…

Umm, wait…a chippy A.I that phases into your head and tells you what to do… dual weapon loadout… rechargeable shield…guns that have little actual grunt or feeling… enemies differentiated solely by the type of weapon they wield and the size of their health bar… fancy energy grenades…

Bugger…my journalistic integrity might have to take a hit on this one…

Put simply, Destiny isn’t just like Halo, it is Halo; just in a different set of makeup. Now look, I know Bungie made Halo, so it’s only natural that they, to a certain extent, go with what they know, but … really? This much?

I cannot understate quite how much Destiny is exactly the same as Halo in so many ways. If I didn’t know about the development cycle of the game or the history of the studio and the Halo licence, I would have assumed this was always meant to be a Halo game but a licencing issue meant they had to remove all references to the brand at the last minute, it’s that close.

Combat is the same as you remember, with you cycling between your pair of weapons on the fly. You have the iconic Halo-style rechargeable shield, so find yourself taking regular coffee-breaks behind cover until it charges up. You do this while fighting enemies with the same moronic A.I. as you used to experience back in the pomp of Bungie’s old opus. Enemies are brick-stupid and stand and strafe or charge… that’s basically it. Additional challenge is produced by either upping weapon power or shield layers and that’s it. Hell, enemies are even divided up into grunt/elite style groupings, for goodness sake!

The thing is, Halo was and is a great example of the shooter genre and it’s not necessarily bad for your gameplay to replicate such a popular and effective mechanic: it just feels a bit lazy or disingenuous to peddle the same old stuff under a new banner. It’s like Bungie dumped their old girlfriend, regretted it and, unable to get her back, started dating someone who looked just like her. It’s just a bit weird is all.

In addition, while the good stuff from halo is here, so is the ‘bad’ stuff. The combat mechanic is very frenetic and high-paced, reliant on twitch reflexes and accuracy over an extended period; which is excellent and rewarding for players accustomed to it. However, it’s horrifically unforgiving to those who don’t have those reflexes, either due to inexperience or general skill level. Due to the extended period of concentrated fire needed to drop shields and health, newer players will repeatedly be decimated by new players, with little chance to eke out those encouraging kills that are available in more instantly-lethal games such as Battlefield. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not necessarily saying this is a bad thing, but it is a feature of the system and is hardly going to make it accessible to new players.

And that brings me back to my big issue with the game and why it made me feel isolated and alone.

Destiny is terrible at integrating people into its community; plain and simple. The only real way to form a fire team that’s built into the game is to invite people into your Fireteam from your friends list. However, if you don’t already have a long list of online shooter players who’ve picked up Destiny, well sorry fella you’re shit out of luck. In theory the hub zone Tower is also an option for this, but you’re not dropped into one universal hub, but one of an infinite number of potential sub-hubs, containing a small, random segment of the community. So unless you’re lucky enough to have a few willing players your level in there, you’re again out of luck. As it turned out, every visit it made to the damn place proved it to be populated entirely by players about 20 levels ahead of me, unwilling or unable to respond to my desperate please for attention.

So what I ended up doing was teleporting off the Tower (as the game constantly pestered me to do) and sit, sullen and alone, in my modest and lonely space ship hanging in orbit around Earth with not a single other thing in sight; a depressingly apt visual metaphor for my overall experience in the game.

Admittedly, a significant number of the user base will be existing online shooter luminaries, with an established base of Destiny-possessing friends to link up with. However, as Destiny purports itself as a new generation of shooters, it’s not unreasonable to assume they were looking for new players to the genre. However, the inability to really find a set of fellow players to play with will kill that new game optimism pretty quickly. Here is a game that’s crying out for a player-matching logarithm, like the World of Warcraft Dungeon Finder. Why such a feature has not been included I will never know, but the game suffers hugely for its omission.

All in all, Destiny was a depressing game for me to play and if I have to say that about a game, it probably shouldn’t expect a great assessment. I can see that it would be fun to play, really I do. While Halo-style combat has its down-sides, it’s always good for a bout of hectic and energetic arcade-style shooing fun. Unfortunately that fun is diminished somewhat when done alone and the game does its level best to keep you sat alone in your spaceship.

The game has a lot going for it, but also, it seems I was destined not to have a very good experience with it.

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