Prior to Sony's open hand slap to the face of Microsoft, developer Bungie took the stage at Sony's press conference to show off some gameplay from their upcoming title, Destiny. I was, in a word, excited. In case you missed it, Bungie has released a brief glimpse of what they showed off last night, along with a little more story/setup to the events that will unfold in the game. The trailer doesn't give too much time on any one aspect (there's a lot of action jump shots crammed into nearly 3 minutes). So watch it and then I'll break down a few things based off what they showed yesterday.
Alright, so let's focus on the biggest features they've added: Public Events. This is highlighted a little starting at the 1:20 mark in the video and goes to around 1:34. I know it's hard to tell amidst all the shooting, explosions, and other things, but what you're seeing is a brief glimpse of a group of players (three separate three-man teams, precisely) temporarily teaming up to take down a horde of baddies and one big baddie. These Public Events seem to be flawlessly integrated with the overall mission progression as, minutes before, two players fought a boss (seen at 2:04 to 2:06) inside a decrepit structure, and then went outside to join in the cooperative struggle. We don't have any further details on how these Public Events work just yet, but with Nick, Locke, Mike, and Andrew all hitting the show floor today, I'm sure we'll find out eventually.
A few other highlights:
- The two players were joined by a third player mid-mission, so the drop-in/drop-out support is fully confirmed
- The boss they fought dropped loot, a gun called "Thunderlord," so it appears there's also a loot-based mechanic built into the game, ala the Borderlands franchise
- The three different character classes - Titan, Hunter, and Warlock - were each shown off, to a degree; mainly the Warlock, who had some kind of AoE and direct damage attacks, and the Hunter, that appeared to have loaded his gun with special ammo for increased damage
- Players will be able to revive downed allies, both on their team and on other teams during the Public Events
I've never been the biggest fan of the Halo series. I enjoyed ODST and Reach, but never really got into all the Master Chief hype. I have admired Bungie's storytelling and world building capabilities, though, and Destiny, from what little we've seen so far, certainly appears to have plenty of both. After last night's gameplay demo, though, I'm full prepared to be a Bungie fanboy and throw my money at them.