When Destiny was revealed in 2013 at the PS4 reveal event, I was hyped. Then when we saw what it would play like at E3 later that year, I was even more hyped. Oh paper, it should have been one of the greatest games of this generation: An FPS with RPG elements, randomised loot like Borderlands, drop in/out online co-op gameplay with elements of shared online worlds, from the people who made the Halo games. It seemed like the logical conclusion to games like Borderlands, which I have a huge affinity for.
Image Credit: bleedingcool.net
After playing the alpha, I decided I would give the game a gamble on release day and picked up a copy. What followed was one of the strangest relationships I’ve ever had with a game, and the start of an abusive relationship between me and Bungie.
Will Destiny’s downfall contribute to the Death of Video Games? Let’s find out.
Will Destiny’s downfall contribute to the Death of Video Games? Let’s find out.
Destiny is a game of broken promises. A lot of what was promised in the promo material for the game is hardly ever delivered in the ‘finished article’ But then again, what was I expecting from Activision, a company that’s not as outright evil as EA, but sure as hell strives to be.
First off, let’s address something that really disappointed me; the story. Regardless of what you might think of the Halo games, it’s hard to deny that it’s story has had a lasting appeal, leading to multiple sequel and prequel games, multiple novels within an expanded universe, an upcoming TV series and a proposed movie from none other than District 9 director Neil Blomkamp. Halo has some of the strongest lore and world building of recent video game history, with great FPS mechanics to back it all up. So, when Bungie were left to their own devices to make a new universe to fill with lore, characters and story, what did they do? Fucking none of that.
First off, let’s address something that really disappointed me; the story. Regardless of what you might think of the Halo games, it’s hard to deny that it’s story has had a lasting appeal, leading to multiple sequel and prequel games, multiple novels within an expanded universe, an upcoming TV series and a proposed movie from none other than District 9 director Neil Blomkamp. Halo has some of the strongest lore and world building of recent video game history, with great FPS mechanics to back it all up. So, when Bungie were left to their own devices to make a new universe to fill with lore, characters and story, what did they do? Fucking none of that.
Image Credit: memedepot.com
Pictured: The writing staff at Bungie.
‘Why?’ you may ask? The assumed reason is because of Activision’s hand in the game. Activision are known for the Call of Duty series, which aren't exactly praised for their storytelling and would much rather focus on the shooty-bangs to get the kids begging for it at Christmas. It’s more of a business practice than an art form where companies like EA and Activision are concerned, where profit margin is a better measure for success than any critical praise. Kind of like if Michael Bay made games, which is a sentence I hope never to type again.
My thought though is that Bungie just thought “Fuck it, they’ll buy the game anyway. And I’ll bet they’ll be dumb enough to spend the value of the game again for two packs of DLC!”. And they were right. Destiny was one of the biggest financial successes of 2014, raking in $500 million to retail stores and first-parties worldwide. Presumably, people bought in expecting a sci-fi saga comparable, if not better, than the one we got in Halo. Sadly, the lore of the world of Destiny is literally homework.
Want to know who anybody is in Destiny? Think the game will tell you? Think again! Bungie put all of it’s world building for Destiny into something called ‘Grimoire Cards’. These are cards that you collect throughout the game when you beat challenges, enemies and bosses which reveal more about the people, legends and items that make up the world of Destiny. And none of it ever appears in the game. Not once. You’ll be playing through the game and suddenly a character will name-drop a bloke called Toland. Who the fuck is Toland? Everybody seems to know who this Toland fucker is except me. Will somebody please tell me who the shit Toland is?! Fact is, you COULD read the lore if you wanted to. But that requires you to step away from the game, fire up a computer, create a Bungie ID, log into that ID, navigate to your Destiny character, into the Grimoire database, into the category that has the card about Toland, read that card and then WONDER WHY THE FUCK THAT WAS NEVER IN THE GAME IN THE FIRST PLACE.
My thought though is that Bungie just thought “Fuck it, they’ll buy the game anyway. And I’ll bet they’ll be dumb enough to spend the value of the game again for two packs of DLC!”. And they were right. Destiny was one of the biggest financial successes of 2014, raking in $500 million to retail stores and first-parties worldwide. Presumably, people bought in expecting a sci-fi saga comparable, if not better, than the one we got in Halo. Sadly, the lore of the world of Destiny is literally homework.
Want to know who anybody is in Destiny? Think the game will tell you? Think again! Bungie put all of it’s world building for Destiny into something called ‘Grimoire Cards’. These are cards that you collect throughout the game when you beat challenges, enemies and bosses which reveal more about the people, legends and items that make up the world of Destiny. And none of it ever appears in the game. Not once. You’ll be playing through the game and suddenly a character will name-drop a bloke called Toland. Who the fuck is Toland? Everybody seems to know who this Toland fucker is except me. Will somebody please tell me who the shit Toland is?! Fact is, you COULD read the lore if you wanted to. But that requires you to step away from the game, fire up a computer, create a Bungie ID, log into that ID, navigate to your Destiny character, into the Grimoire database, into the category that has the card about Toland, read that card and then WONDER WHY THE FUCK THAT WAS NEVER IN THE GAME IN THE FIRST PLACE.
And guess what? THERE'S SHIT ALL ABOUT TOLAND HERE AS WELL!
That’s like playing a Super Mario game and Luigi just goes “Hey Mario, why don’t you use the secret mushroom that Algernon left you?”. You’d be like “Woah, hold up, who the fuck is Algernon, what is this mushroom, where did he leave it, how did Mario find it, and why should I give a flying fuck?!”, and then Nintendo is like “Eh, we got one of our temps to write all of this shit on the back of a postage stamp and we hid it in one of our newsletters, because honestly fuck you guys. Now go back to stomping on Goombas whilst we bath in your money”.
So to summarise: Story and world building: Shockingly bad.
Next, the loot. Oh boy.
Destiny uses a randomised loot drop system, which sounds amazing because it sounds like Borderlands. It isn't. Whereas Borderlands had guns with randomised parts, manufacturers and battle effects which affected a guns stats that you would find every 5 minutes to keep pushing you forward and your cash flow stocked up, Destiny has a small pool of pre-determined guns which has fluctuating stats that you get at the end of every level because fuck you. Loot was Destiny’s problem from day one, with people searching for ways to get better loot from the get go.
So to summarise: Story and world building: Shockingly bad.
Next, the loot. Oh boy.
Destiny uses a randomised loot drop system, which sounds amazing because it sounds like Borderlands. It isn't. Whereas Borderlands had guns with randomised parts, manufacturers and battle effects which affected a guns stats that you would find every 5 minutes to keep pushing you forward and your cash flow stocked up, Destiny has a small pool of pre-determined guns which has fluctuating stats that you get at the end of every level because fuck you. Loot was Destiny’s problem from day one, with people searching for ways to get better loot from the get go.
Image Credit: forbes.com
This sight is rare outside of exploits.
Which means I have to talk about the Loot Cave. The Loot Cave was a location on the Earth map where the death and respawn rate of small enemies meant that the random number generator of the loot drop system would more effectively drop high levelled loot. Let me explain further.
In Destiny’s loot drop system, a random level 2 weak enemy has the exact same chance to drop a rare weapon or armour piece as a level 32 hard mode boss. Similarly, it was possible to get an absolutely dogshit gun after fighting a hard motherfucker for 5 hours straight and equally possible to get one of the rarest guns in the game by simply logging on a shooting a few dude in the face. These are mechanics that still have not been fixed to this day. In fact, you can run the absolute hardest level in the game and get a shitty resource, whilst your friend in the same game can get an overpowered gun or the strongest armour in the game with no real reason for the reward difference. That makes no sense, right? Correct. Did that stop Bungie putting it in? Absolutely fucking not.
In Destiny’s loot drop system, a random level 2 weak enemy has the exact same chance to drop a rare weapon or armour piece as a level 32 hard mode boss. Similarly, it was possible to get an absolutely dogshit gun after fighting a hard motherfucker for 5 hours straight and equally possible to get one of the rarest guns in the game by simply logging on a shooting a few dude in the face. These are mechanics that still have not been fixed to this day. In fact, you can run the absolute hardest level in the game and get a shitty resource, whilst your friend in the same game can get an overpowered gun or the strongest armour in the game with no real reason for the reward difference. That makes no sense, right? Correct. Did that stop Bungie putting it in? Absolutely fucking not.
Image Credit: neogaf.com
This happens way too often. Yellow is the highest tier of loot. Blue is worth as much as pocket lint.
You see, Bungie thought the random element would keep players hooked to the game on the offchance that the next gun would drop a good gun or armour piece, meaning they could progress further and become stronger. Once people figured out that they could maximise this mechanic to get rare gear easier, Bungie soon put a stop to the fun and patched the spawn rate. Oh, but we’ll get to why Bungie and patching was a match made in Satan’s undercrackers in just a few moments, ‘cause I need to talk about the loot first.
Oh, and quickly, for those keeping score, that means that the reward mechanics in this game are fucking horseshit
Let’s talk about the Loot itself, specifically in the post-‘main story’. As you’re completing the ‘story’ of Destiny, you’ll go through your first 20 levels on your character and earn progressively tougher weapons and armour (Assuming the loot system works as advertised, which it rarely does). But then something weird happens. You've for a ton of higher level missions to do and you’re getting instantly killed by looking at the environment wrong. You need to be higher levelled, but it’s impossible to do so through actually playing the game and becoming good at it.
Oh, and quickly, for those keeping score, that means that the reward mechanics in this game are fucking horseshit
Let’s talk about the Loot itself, specifically in the post-‘main story’. As you’re completing the ‘story’ of Destiny, you’ll go through your first 20 levels on your character and earn progressively tougher weapons and armour (Assuming the loot system works as advertised, which it rarely does). But then something weird happens. You've for a ton of higher level missions to do and you’re getting instantly killed by looking at the environment wrong. You need to be higher levelled, but it’s impossible to do so through actually playing the game and becoming good at it.
Image Credit: destiny.wikia.com
Pictured: Post-Game Bullshit
Welcome to Light Level armour: Armour with scaling light levels allow your character to reach levels above 20 and up to 32, which make your character arbitrarily tougher to kill in harder missions in the game. It amounts to a bullshit mechanic that means you have to constantly grind the same levels over and over again and wait for the broken loot system to spit out the helmet you need to raise your light level, so you can finally play the content you’ve been denied because a fucking number generator said you weren’t lucky enough to get that helmet on your 19th try of the same fucking boss.
This is where players started to notice how barren and empty the game actually is once you take the grind out of it. Because you’re busy most of the time working toward trying to get a certain armour piece, you notice that you’ve been killing the same big bad for the past week. It’s a clever veil that Bungie has put up because the game is so blindingly short. And it’s THE SINGLE most expensive game ever produced. It looks pretty sure, but it has less levels than the first island of the original Crash Bandicoot. And that came out in 1997. And was made on 1/500th of the budget of Destiny. And it had like four fucking islands and almost four times as many maps as Destiny. There was no fucking excuse!
This is where players started to notice how barren and empty the game actually is once you take the grind out of it. Because you’re busy most of the time working toward trying to get a certain armour piece, you notice that you’ve been killing the same big bad for the past week. It’s a clever veil that Bungie has put up because the game is so blindingly short. And it’s THE SINGLE most expensive game ever produced. It looks pretty sure, but it has less levels than the first island of the original Crash Bandicoot. And that came out in 1997. And was made on 1/500th of the budget of Destiny. And it had like four fucking islands and almost four times as many maps as Destiny. There was no fucking excuse!
Image Credit: kdramastars.com
Look at him. He's so happy. Probably because his game's story lasts longer than 8 Hours.
Now, let’s get to my biggest gripe about Destiny: Bungie’s anti-consumer attitude with its patches and treatment of its players. Let’s make one thing very clear. Bungie are talented, but holy FUCK have they been treating their fans like utter SHIT as of late. This boils my piss to no end.
During the early weeks of the game, there were several occasions where players found endgame exploits, loot exploits or broken mechanics to further themselves in the game. These instances continue even to today, and Bungie has been relentlessly finding as many of these exploits as possible and patching them out. Now, bear in mind that the hardest levels in the game can still easily wipe the floor with a character that you have got excellent armour and weapons for. Added to that are raids that have puzzle or battle mechanics that can actually screw over your entire game for no particularly good reason. Bungie put the loot that was promised to us behind some of the biggest obstacles the game has, most of which are poor design choices and broken mechanics, and players find their way around them with a great deal of ingenuity.
During the early weeks of the game, there were several occasions where players found endgame exploits, loot exploits or broken mechanics to further themselves in the game. These instances continue even to today, and Bungie has been relentlessly finding as many of these exploits as possible and patching them out. Now, bear in mind that the hardest levels in the game can still easily wipe the floor with a character that you have got excellent armour and weapons for. Added to that are raids that have puzzle or battle mechanics that can actually screw over your entire game for no particularly good reason. Bungie put the loot that was promised to us behind some of the biggest obstacles the game has, most of which are poor design choices and broken mechanics, and players find their way around them with a great deal of ingenuity.
Then, Bungie have the NERVE to hotfix ANYTHING that actually HELPS players, but when it comes to ther broken mechanics in the raids and levels, or the infamous heavy ammo loss glitch, they do FUCKING NOTHING. The heavy ammo loss glitch was in the game at launch and that only got fixed the other week. That’s SIX MONTHS! In that time, two loot caves and countless boss glitches have been fixed! Bungie’s priorities are not to the enjoyment of it’s player, but to fucking figures. Sales figures, player figures, revenue figures, you name it. They don’t give a FLYING FUCK about the user end experience! All they care about is maintaining an audience and profiting off them! That is an almost undeniable fact at this point! The heavy ammo loss glitch felt like more of a footnote on the patch details (A patch with actually CAUSED more breaking bugs which THEY CAN’T BE ARSED TO FIX).
Add to that the bullshit that is shit like Xur; a vendor in the tower who apparently sells random exotic loot, who has consistently sold the same low levelled gear and removed his heavy ammo refill packs, just so people have to grind to get money for ammo and then grind again to get anywhere near the endgame material.
Add to that the bullshit that is shit like Xur; a vendor in the tower who apparently sells random exotic loot, who has consistently sold the same low levelled gear and removed his heavy ammo refill packs, just so people have to grind to get money for ammo and then grind again to get anywhere near the endgame material.
Image Credit: twitter.com/puddytangg
This is genuinely what it felt like for about 20 weeks of the game.
Seriously, fuck you, Bungie. FUCK. YOU. And fuck you too, Activision. Your unholy union have made what could have been a legendary quality game into an above average, anti-consumer hellhole of an experience.
And do you want to know the worst part? I’m still playing.
And do you want to know the worst part? I’m still playing.
Image Credit: howtogeek.com
Oh God, it's true...
Okay, contrary to everything I have just said, and I continue to stand by that, I will say this: Two things keep me coming back to Destiny: The gunplay and the community.
The gunplay is standard Bungie fare, meaning it controls beautifully, and it is so satisfying to cap things in the head, blow up tons of dudes with fiery homing missiles and take out tough enemies with a sticky grenade. It’s just fun. Not much else to say on that part, it’s just a nice feeling shooter, if you take away all the levelling and grinding bullshit.
The gunplay is standard Bungie fare, meaning it controls beautifully, and it is so satisfying to cap things in the head, blow up tons of dudes with fiery homing missiles and take out tough enemies with a sticky grenade. It’s just fun. Not much else to say on that part, it’s just a nice feeling shooter, if you take away all the levelling and grinding bullshit.
Image Credit: mp1st.com
Admittedly, shit gets real in the Vault of Glass.
But to end on a positive note, the community for Destiny is one of the best I have ever encountered. The Subreddit is an incredible place to find teams, chat about issues in the game, learn strategies and generally share moments from the game. Hilariously enough, some of the best parts of Destiny have been community driven, like the invention of Randall The Vandal; a character who was given an comically epic back-story after originating from a glitch in the game that made a common enemy have the health of a boss. Some of the stuff the community has mad is just excellent. The in jokes are incredible too.
And this is one of the very few games where I have interacted with players from around the globe and formed international connections and friendships with people I wouldn't have normally had the opportunity to do so with. Our clan currently features players from across the UK and the US, yet we act like we've known each other forever. The comradery is astounding. It’s properly put my faith back into connecting with other players online and it’s amazingly refreshing to have this kind of friendly interaction with previously unknown players. And you’re all facing the same annoyances and triumphing against the same stacked odds. In a way, that is the real reason to keep playing.
And this is one of the very few games where I have interacted with players from around the globe and formed international connections and friendships with people I wouldn't have normally had the opportunity to do so with. Our clan currently features players from across the UK and the US, yet we act like we've known each other forever. The comradery is astounding. It’s properly put my faith back into connecting with other players online and it’s amazingly refreshing to have this kind of friendly interaction with previously unknown players. And you’re all facing the same annoyances and triumphing against the same stacked odds. In a way, that is the real reason to keep playing.
Image Credit: The Destiny Community
And I guess I will keep playing. Not because this is a well-crafted game, because it isn’t. Not because the story has me hooked, because strictly speaking, there isn’t one. Not because I admire the work of Bungie, because I hate them now. Not even because I’m trying to get my value out of the game, because I still feel short changed.
Is Destiny a contributor the Death of Video Games? Maybe, but I’ll keep playing. Because my fellow Guardians need me.
Is Destiny a contributor the Death of Video Games? Maybe, but I’ll keep playing. Because my fellow Guardians need me.
By Mike Owen
@ThatMikeOwen
The Editor in Chief of Foul Entertainment, Mike edits most of what you see on the site. He runs the production of all three of our current podcasts, he is responsible for logo, art design and site design, and does a good deal of writing across the spectrum.
@ThatMikeOwen
The Editor in Chief of Foul Entertainment, Mike edits most of what you see on the site. He runs the production of all three of our current podcasts, he is responsible for logo, art design and site design, and does a good deal of writing across the spectrum.