When Bungie announced their first project upon breaking away from the Microsoft mothership would be another sci-fi shooter, comparison to its former glory were almost immediate.
However, we now learn those at Bungie were looking forward to moving on from their Halo past, in hopes of blazing a new trail. “We’ll never turn a blind eye to the accomplishments that come from the Halo era at Bungie. But as creators, as artists, as people with imaginations for how games can be new and different, and exciting, it was pretty liberating, actually, to start with a blank canvas and say, ‘What sort of story do we want to tell now?” said community manager David Dague in a recent interview.
Destiny has been a huge hit by all accounts, garnering rave reviews and becoming the most pre-ordered new IP of all time. With its curve-ball it threw the FPS genre (by including MMO elements into its mechanics), some have found it to be quite an adjustment (even amongst the developers themselves). “We had a lot of fun stretching our legs and challenging ourselves to explore some new territory with Destiny. And it’s been a welcome change for a lot of people on the team who had kept their imaginations rooted in that United Nations Space Command for so many years.” Dague says.
Destiny launched last Tuesday and is currently available for both the Xbox One and PlayStation 4.