It’s been about eight months since the initial release of Destiny on the Xbox and Playstation platforms. I felt like eight months is long enough to leave an online based game time to settle down, iron out glitches and server issues and for the hype train to slowly roll into reality station and so I picked it up last week.

Though this is my first encounter with a retail copy I have played Destiny before, I played the hell out of the beta, and then I played the very generous demo that gives you a great deal of freedom to appreciate the game, though limiting you to Earth and a level cap of seven. Although I enjoyed these experiences there was one underlying issue to which I had hoped would be fixed by the time I took the plunge and bought a full retail copy of the game: connectivity.

When playing through the beta I was kicked from the Destiny world on almost every single mission, which, on a game like Destiny where you can easily put an hour or two into a single mission is rather aggravating. These issues died down when playing the demo but there was still a 50/50 chance I wouldn’t be able to finish what I’d started. So the question is, after all this time has the connectivity issue been fixed? Can hesitant players actually buy the game confident in the fact that they won’t spend hours fighting through a hellish mission just to get kicked at the last second and lose all progress?

Before I answer the question I shall regale you with a scenario that happened to me recently.

It was a perfect set up for gaming, a day off, the missus was at work, the cats have been fed and so had I, no chores to do, it was even raining outside so I could justify spending an entire day indoors. I had smartly installed Destiny onto my Xbox the night before and so it was primed and ready to go.
I turned on the Xbox and it needed an update… okay only 256mb that’s fine, waited fifteen minutes (I have slow internet because I live in a field) and started the game, ‘Destiny needs updating’ hmm okay no worries, just unlucky. 4GB you say? Bollocks. I decided to leave it to download and picked up my smartphone. I recently downloaded the new Mortal Kombat game on iPhone so continued progressing with that, chose a seven match playlist, got to match three and the app crashes, restarting me at my initial progress. Slightly enraged I then decided Destiny wouldn’t finish updating for hours so figured I’d stop the download and play some GTA Online with my brother, we started a heist and waited for others to join, we waited half an hour and could not get a fourth player. I gave up. Turned the console off and opened up my 3DS, ‘There is an update available’ I then smashed the 3DS on the ground set my entire console collection on fire and danced naked in the flames.
I may have made that last part up, at least I hope I did, everything seems all blurry thinking back to that moment.

I recall not so long ago being able to buy a game after school or work getting home, putting it in the disk tray and playing it. Not worrying if an update was required or that I might get randomly sent back to the home screen. Everything was so much simpler and it’s something I really miss.
Now I’m very aware that games such as GTA and Destiny are massive games that require a lot more maintenance than these older games and so of course will have infinitely more issues. I’m not suggesting that they’re doing anything wrong I’m merely stating that in this day and age gaming is not always certain way to pass the time it’s something to do if our internet connection allows us, and for me that’s a scary thought.
So the answer is, yes Destiny does work better that it used to, I don’t get kicked out of the game world very often and much less often that with either the beta or the demo, though I still get kicked often enough to make me hesitant when playing for a long period of time. I am uneasy when playing, worrying that I’ll be kicked out just as I’m about to land the final blow in a boss fight, though this is no different to being enraged when I just can’t get that fourth person to join on GTA Heists, or when I take solace in a smartphone game only to have any progress I make get wiped. Destiny is a modern game, and like most modern games it aims to be connected in new and exciting ways, it’s just unfortunate that in order to accommodate these new and exciting ways, traditional elements such as the ability to actually play the game for more than half an hour get lost.

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