Destiny Alpha Extended, "Dangerous Experiments" Now Underway

Update: The Destiny alpha is now closed, according to Bungie. "Thank you, Guardians of the Alpha. You have made the City stronger and safer. See all of you in the Destiny Beta," it said on Twitter after warning of the imminent closure.

Original Story: If you were disappointed that your chance to play Destiny had come to an end last night, you're in luck: Bungie has extended the alpha test for an unspecified period of time, although it warns players to continue playing "at [their] own risk."

The Destiny alpha, which was announced during E3 last week, is available exclusively on the PlayStation 4. It had been scheduled to go offline on Sunday night as Bungie prepares the upcoming beta test. But, apparently seeing the opportunity to leverage the number of people that it only has access to with a public test such as this, it's trying out some "dangerous experiments," according to its Twitter account.

After teasing that the Alpha would be extended, Bungie tweeted today, "Yup. Alpha still works. Now, we're gonna test it in expert mode. If you're still playing, pardon our dust. This is for the Beta!" It has since provided further updates on the status of the testing, including the fact that "servers will be up and down all day. This bonus time is for more rigorous Science."

One unfortunate side effect of this testing is an "expected" loss of data. "While we run tests many players will experience a loss of progress and/or a rollback to earlier versions of characters," a tweet reads. Of course, as far as we know, no progress from this alpha will carry over to the final game (or the beta, for that matter). Because of that, a loss of data is ultimately inconsequential, especially considering the original plan wasn't for gamers to still be playing today.

Bungie has not yet said when the alpha will finally come to an end, but we do know the beta will kick off on PS4 and PS3 on July 17. The beta will come to Xbox One and Xbox 360 at a later date before the final game is released on all four platforms on September 9.