I realize this isn't an exact answer, but (to me) it starts to show what the worlds of Destiny are built to be:
Can you leave the city and explore the surrounding area in an open world sense?
Eric Osborne: Your primary space on earth is the Tower, which is where Guardians go. It's the overwatch of the city, where you're looking out and defending the city. It's also where the military districts and and where the hangers are for your ships. It's a sort of a separate class. You're not just a citizen. You're a Guardian. You're actually charged with going out there. You've elected to become a hero.
There are definitely places on earth and the other worlds that are built for exploration, that are large spaces. When we show off the moon, for example, that's one activity line, a strike that begins in the world then gets more focused as you go in and becomes a private experience. But we're only showing a small slice of that. In a lot of those places, if you go left or right there's a whole other scenario or set of activities you can do. The Cosmodrome stuff we showed off at E3 is a tiny fraction of that space.
We shy away from open world. They are massive spaces and there's a tonne of stuff to do in them. And there are enemies to fight. And you can absolutely go out there and get lost. But for a lot of players, just like MMO, open world has a separate connotation. It implies a style or genre of game, as opposed to an activity.
On the MMO comparison, Destiny is described as a shared world shooter. Do you face a challenge of communication in that Destiny isn't an MMO in the traditional sense, but has MMO elements?
Eric Osborne: Yeah. That's why we started slow and with the action kernel. We want to get across, hey, it's an action game. It's a shooter. This is what we do. This is what we love making. If you enjoy the stuff we've made in the past, you're absolutely going to have that type of experience. The rest we layer around that. That's where we're at the bleeding edge.
How do we make the things we love from an action RPG and pull them into this thing and make this genre feel unique? And how do we take things from an open world and pull them in? And how do we take things from an MMO and pull them in without both confusing the shit out of everyone when we try to tell them what it is?
It feels like a cop-out to say, well, you have to play it to understand it, but in some ways that is actually true. But there are some negative things around it. The first question you get when they're like, 'oh, it's an MMO', is, 'well what's the subscription fee?'
David Dague: Destiny is a first-person shooter, but you will definitely play a role in this game. You will definitely be able to explore. People will find Bungie is committed to providing players with feedback. And one of the pieces of feedback you'll always be given is, what can you do next? The world will be always giving you an invitation to come and experience something specific, be it an activity with other people or a piece of the story. We want to make that very obvious so people don't feel lost and just wandering looking for something to happen.
Log in to comment