Halo creators, Bungie, have emerged from their glowing development cocoon with a few scraps of info about their upcoming online shooter, Destiny. The class-based FPS takes place after a great cataclysm that has shrunk humanity to a small community of armoured badasses (that's you), who must work together to fend off invaders and reclaim former colonies from the claws of powerful alien occupiers. There's a strong focus on co-operative play (though there will be PvP), it'll take place in a persistent world and won't require a subscription to play. Activision call it a "shared world shooter," but nobody knows what that means, so we'll have to wait and see if it has the wide open worlds and hub locations of your typical MMO.
But will it be on PC? "We need to make sure that we're prepared for the future. Both prepared for upcoming generations, certainly upcoming other platforms. Multiple platforms," said Bungie COO Pete Parsons at the reveal event. "The thing we're focused on is creating that living universe, that place that you want to be on, and not have it be dependent on any specific platform or device."
Activision CEO-bot Eric Hirshberg added this. "Until anything's officially announced, from the first parties, obviously we can't comment on any platforms that might be forthcoming. But what we can say is that we're building Destiny to be wherever gamers are. And we want this to be one of the great video game franchises and entertainment franchise for the next decade."
YES, BUT WILL IT BE ON PC? "I'd say we would absolutely love to be on PC," Parsons said. "If you go upstairs and talk to the people upstairs, we play on all platforms. So stay tuned."
Not yet, then. Players will be able to do "meaningful things" to the "shared world" through the use of mobile apps and the like, which seems like a good opportunity for some microtransaction action, though Bungie and Activision were tight lipped on how exactly Destiny will make its millions. The plan is to unfold the series over a ten year period.
It's been reported that Bungie slammed the PC during the reveal on Sunday, but that's not really the case. Bungie co-founder Jason Jones was bigging up Halo's influence on the modern shooter, albeit in a rather cocksure manner. Here's what he said to Destructoid . "We did a bunch of ambitious things on Halo deliberately to reach out to people. We limited players to two weapons, we gave them recharging health, we automatically saved and restored the game -- almost heretical things to first-person shooters at the time. We made the game run without a mouse and keyboard. And now nobody plays shooters the way they used to play them before Halo 'cause nobody wants to."
Exciting news, though. A new game from Bungie! There's a fair amount of fondness for Halo in the PC Gamer office. It'd be lovely to see them come back to the PC. The Destiny concept art they've put out so far looks pretty sweet, too. Bombs away:
These are the three classes revealed so far, the Hunter, the Warlock and the Titan. They can wield the power of The Traveller, a mysterious being that saved humanity from complete destruction during the mysterious near-apocalypse that tore humanity to shreds. Expect lots of character advancement and gear customisation.
