Destiny’s Endgame Is Just the Beginning

Bungie’s brand-new Destiny includes quite a bit of content beyond its multi-planet campaign. To wit: Raids are six-player missions that open up when players hit level 20. There are no waypoints to tell you where to go and what to do; they’re also friends-only, with no matchmaking, meaning that you’ll need to gather five friends who own the game, and sync your schedules in order to play them. They’ll have you struggling your way through the most challenging dungeons, fighting the biggest bosses – and they reward you with the best loot and upgrades the game has to offer. They are very challenging, and demand communication and cooperation from the entire team.

This endgame content fits into a sequence of experiences that Bungie orchestrated from the start. It begins as players see the end of the game’s story, which serves to align the motivations of the players with the motivations of their characters. “I think what players will find is that the game unfolds and transforms over time,” said Executive Producer Patrick O’Kelley. “In the first hour, it might feel like a familiar shooter. Then, players will start to see other players in the world. They will undertake cooperative and competitive activities without really worrying about it. Or they might keep on a solo journey but partake in public events. Eventually, they’ll go to the Tower and learn some of the mechanics to improve their character. They’ll make decisions about character customization and ability customization.”
Players are encouraged to log in every day to see what’s happening in Destiny’s Featured Activities pane, and then head to the tower to get their bounties for the day. Bounties allow players to create a parallel progression for what they’re doing for a day. Nightfall activities come both daily and weekly, and provide extremely exotic rewards for those who are capable of making their way through them.
“Twenty hours in, I think that players will find that they’ve evolved to playing a whole different kind of game than the shooter that started them off,” O’Kelley continued. “They’ll find that they’re immersed in a different world, and are deep into the history of their characters. They’ll have built a community of other players. And, without realizing it, they’ll have learned some sophisticated mechanics that enable them to gear up and dive into a six-player cooperative raid, in pursuit of high-level exotic weapons and armor.”
So remember: When you hit the end of Destiny’s campaign, you’ve only just gotten warmed up. So pick up your copy on Xbox One or Xbox 360, and get cracking, because there’s a lot to do here!