Destiny Has Gone Gold, Ready to Launch September 9

Destiny, Bungie's shared-world shooter and first big game following Halo, has gone gold, meaning discs are being pressed and getting ready to ship to stores.

"Destiny is done, in some respects. Even now, so close to the end, it still feels like we’re just getting started," David "DeeJ" Dague said in the developer's weekly update. "How we’ll keep things lively on the frontier is a longer conversation – the sort of thing you could base an entire discussion around – a conversation that we hope is long and fruitful and just getting started in its own right."

Publisher Activision has high hopes for Destiny, saying earlier this year that it could become its third billion-dollar franchise, joining the likes of franchises like Call of Duty and Skylanders. It's already GameStop's most preordered new IP ever, and some retailers canceled preorders of the Destiny Limited Edition as a result of too much demand.

Destiny launches September 9 for Xbox 360, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, and PlayStation 4. If you want to play Destiny on PS4 and don't already own one, you can pick up a white PS4 bundled with a copy of the game.

As to how early you'll be able to start playing the game exactly, Dague said that as soon as it's September 9 somewhere in the world, Bungie's servers will be ready. "Retailers will stick to time-zones," he said. "Our servers won’t know the difference. Retailers will break street date. Our servers won’t."

For more on Destiny, check out GameSpot's previous coverage.