To say that Destiny’s beta has been a success would be an understatement – after all, we’ve talked about little else for the past two weeks. However, while much of that discussion has been overwhelmingly positive, developer Bungie has had to move to reassure fans that there’ll be plenty of content in the impending first-person shooter, after it emerged that there’ll only be one location per planet.
This means that Old Russia – the rustic location central to the beta – is the only region on Earth that you’ll be able to visit. And the same will be true of Mars, Venus, and the Moon. So, what of the rest of the solar system? “We've revealed everything that you'll explore in the first version of the game,” said community manager David ‘DeeJ’ Dague. That means that, potentially, you’ve already seen a good quarter of the release.
Fortunately, fellow spokesperson Eric ‘Urk’ Osborne dropped into a frenzied NeoGAF thread in order to allay fears. “Destiny's pretty big,” he reassured. “It's the biggest game that we've ever made, by far, and we're sort of known for making games that you can play for months, years, and even decades if you're a little bit... dedicated.” He continued that the title will have more variety and breadth of activities then any of its previous products.
Of course, the studio also plans to keep you occupied long after launch, too – presumably with those expansion packs that were announced a few weeks back. The difference this time around is that it wants to involve everyone. “We think that we did a decent job supporting Halo, but we were only ever able to cater to the competitive set,” he concluded. “Destiny is philosophically built to support every type of player, and all modes with ongoing activities and events."
Still, with environments being broken up into chunks to create different missions, we definitely got a sense of déjà-vu at points during the beta – and fear that that could become even more prevalent in the full release. With the content scaled back for testing purposes, however, we just hope that there’s going to be a lot, lot more in the final game – prior to premium add-on packs, of course.
[source neogaf.com, via eurogamer.net]
Comments 12
To be fair, though, this is more of a case of people creating unrealistic expectations. There was never any concrete evidence that there would be a galaxy to explore, with gigantic maps on every planet you can imagine — yet that seems to be what people thought Destiny would consist of.
Although that said, I thought in Old Russia there were places that were sealed off. You'd get there, a new location name would pop up, but you wouldn't be able to enter as there'd be a closed gate or a wall blocking it.
Anyway, imagination is a scary thing. I guess you could blame Bungie for not coming out with information about content sooner, but people should never make assumptions based on pure hype alone and then be disappointed when they aren't in fact a reality.
@ShogunRok Im interested to see what will be done with the areas that were defended by enemies that came up with ?? for their level. My fireteam managed to break through one of the caves after much respawning and found about 20 ?? level knights guarding a black cocoon! Obviously that is where our adventure ended as they were all immune to our attacks.
I'm scared about the full release!
The beta's (i know a glimpse of the full game) story missions essentially amounted to kill a waves of enemies, defend your location/ send your ghost to do stuff and/or kill the big guys/bosses/bullet sponges (Tank) with cutscenes & commentary inserted in. The enemies & story had no personality to them.
Plently pros such as the classes, music, responsive gameplay, differing AI intelligence, smooth and functional online connection even with my connection!
Edit: Those ??? areas and enemies i just avoided wasn't bothered to run past them and die many times, it probably represents returning to Old Russia at somepoint for further difficult missions.
@ShogunRok From the game's official website: "From the Creators of Halo and the company that brought you Call of Duty. In Destiny you are a Guardian of the last city on Earth, able to wield incredible power. Explore the ancient ruins of our solar system, from the red dunes of Mars to the lush jungles of Venus. Defeat Earth’s enemies. Reclaim all that we have lost. Become legend."
You're absolutely right, though, I don't think we've seen all of Old Russia at all.
I'm afraid if this means other place will be dlc
Please no
"We've revealed everything that you'll explore in the first version of the game"
Sounds like a limited release with a stack of paid DLC to come. :-/
I enjoyed the Alpha and the Beta, but I agree with others, missions etc. just seemed like endless waves of enemies to shoot, with little story or expansion on the characters.
Granted, it was just an alpha/beta, but from the way it had been promoted, it was made to appear that there would be a massive universe to explore. Hearing news like this only makes me happier that I decided not to pre-order, and wait for reviews - not for the scores, but for more detailed information on the full game.
I don't mind one location, on each planet, it would be nice for quite a few more planets/moons/comets/asteroids etc to go explore and hopefully the areas will be expanded a fair amount. So far it doesn't seem like there's a whole lot to explore but I haven't been put off, still seems to me the most fun game so far this year.
@get2sammyb But again, it's not really solid evidence. I mean, granted, even I was a bit disappointed to hear that there are only a handful of locations, but that statement is at least true, if very slightly misleading. The ruins on the different planets are what we'll be exploring, after all. It still comes down to people assuming that there's going to be this entire galaxy to explore, and then being disgusted that their theories weren't quite right.
I would be okay with one location for each planet if there was more than 4 planets. I thought in an interview I read a few months ago they said there were more Earth locations than just Old Russia? Or will those locations just be DLC? Regardless, I'm still getting this game.
The campaign will be back n forth between planets, with alot of revisting and bactracking involved. Its obvious that to have access to those parts of old russia that have fallen ( that you cant damage and can one shot kill you), They're lvl20 or even????
You will have to go back to old russia armoured up to the eyeballs!! And have an attack lvl 350 gun.To face them. I can see alot of backtracking in this game!!!!
I wonder if that female huntress from the cut scene, will fight along side you in some story missions? If so how would they implement that with other players often being in the space as you, during the story missions?
Frenzied hype and unrealistic expectations are always a danger.....heavy coverage of a game can be a double edged sword.
Even if there is less content than originally expected, there still seems to be plenty to justify the price of admission for me. I loved every thing about the beta that I experienced and have no regrets from my decision to pre-order it.
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