I love Destiny. I love what it is as a game, and what it represents for the games industry, the gaming culture/community and games as an art form.
But there is this perception that it’s not as good as it actually is, and it definitely isn’t as appreciated as I believe it deserves to be. That upsets me. The executives upset me because all they see is that it is not making Fortnite-money ($3 billion in 2018). The gamers upset me because they don’t appreciate just how much content and entertainment the game actually offers in its $40-60 packages. Ungrateful fools!
So, this time, I decided to write something less… objective. This is my blog after all.
Destiny (2014)
Destiny, the Last Hope
Destiny is the most advanced form of the First Person Shooter (FPS) genre, and the industry’s best (and most successful) answer so far to fusing FPSs with the Massively Multiplayer Online RPG (MMORPGs, a la World of Warcraft) experience. Few games come even close to what Bungie has achieved with Destiny, technologically or artistically, and the few that tried (e.g NCSoft’s WildStar in 2014, Ubisoft’s The Division in 2016, etc.) have not been nearly as successful, neither technologically nor financially.
At this moment, the only game that people expect to have the potential to dethrone Destiny is EA’s upcoming title “Anthem (Feb 22nd, 2019)”, which is releasing a whooping 54 months after Destiny’s initial release in 2014. But if I were a betting man, I’d bet that by June of this year, Anthem will have been long forgotten by the industry while Destiny players will have once again returned to Destiny, enjoying the game’s latest content drop and its newest raid.
But let me first explain what I mean by “fusing FPSs with MMORPGs”. And, for that, I first need to provide some history behind both FPSs and MMORPGs.
Story time!
Boys will be Shooters
Ever since Tron (1982) hit the theaters (or perhaps even before then), boys of my generation (Gen-X, baby!) dreamed about playing inside computer-generated virtual worlds one day.
I'm inside a computer! (from Tron)
“Shooters” just happened to be the format that boys like me were most attracted to. This is why Wolfenstein3D and Doom were so successful in the early 1990s; they were the first to provide exactly that type of experience for male gamers. And so followed a series of other FPS games such as Quake, Unreal and Counter-Strike, all of which were very successful in their respective regards. FPSs became huge. HUGE!
Doom II (1994)
But there was one problem; these games were made only for desktop PCs (and Macs). And even though some of these games were ported to consoles at various points, none of those console ports were nearly as successful as their PC counterparts (Doom's console ports were mostly horrible). This wasn’t because console gamers disliked shooters, as proven by the success of Golden Eye 007 on the Nintendo 64. Rather, it was because the shooter experience on console was fundamentally flawed due to how difficult and unintuitive it was to aim and shoot at a moving target with a joystick instead of a mouse. As a result, PCs effectively became the exclusive platform for FPS games, simply because you could use a mouse on a PC. And this lasted almost a decade.
Halo: The Evolved Shooter
Bungie was the company that changed this with “Halo: Combat Evolved (2001)”. They single-handedly tore down that barrier and unleashed FPS gaming onto the console world. I cannot overstate the importance of Halo, not only for FPS gaming, but also for gaming overall. IMO, it is what helped “core” gaming to break out into the mainstream, at least in the Western world and among boys. And it did so by introducing an easy-to-get-decent-at FPS game to an audience that previously considered FPS games as “too hardcore” for them (i.e. console gamers and non-gamers).
Halo: Combat Evolved (2001)
Halo was a wonderful game in many ways, but there were two things they introduced to the shooter genre that particularly helped compensate for the lack of the mouse on console; one directly and another indirectly.
I’ll mention the indirect one first. Halo introduced a new gameplay mechanic; the regenerating shield. This is how it worked: You are a super-soldier wearing a special armor equipped with deflective shields. This shield depletes as you take damage, but if you stop taking damage for a while (around 4-5 seconds), it starts regenerating at a brisk pace (an empty shield can recharge fully in about 5 seconds). This meant that, as long as the player was patient and remembered to take cover before his shield was completely depleted, he could survive the fight and try again. More importantly, those who did not have great aiming skills now stood a chance at winning a fight by being more tactical and methodical in their approach.
Second is the direct one, and IMO the more important. Halo did something that no game had ever done before; help the player aim at his target, or as it’s now more commonly called, provide “aim assist”. Whereas all previous FPS games had kept the controls entirely in the hands of the player, in Halo, players’ aim would be guided toward (“pulled toward”) their enemies. The way this works is most noticeable when an enemy moves in front of a player; you’ll notice that your character’s aim will “follow” that enemy, even if you’re not touching your controller.
Video demonstrating how aim assist works in Halo
The resulting experience is that players find it significantly easier to aim at (and follow) their intended target, which makes the overall experience of playing an FPS on console MUCH more enjoyable; the game “knows” what you are trying to aim at, and helps you do so! This is one of the reasons why so many people were able to “have fun” playing Halo almost immediately (after only one or two games) compared to other FPS games which generally took much more practice for players to get good at and enjoy (10 or more games).
These were critical for Halo’s success on Console, especially when it came to multiplayer. Previously, FPS games were very unforgiving and very “twitchy” (which is where twitch.tv gets its name). Whether you survived a fight depended entirely on how quickly you could aim at an opponent, and virtually nothing else. Most fights lasted only a couple of seconds, and a fraction of a second at the top tier. It was also slightly dependent on luck; if the enemy happened to spot you first, or after you’d already fought someone (i.e. you start the fight at lower health), you were most likely dead within the next second, no matter what you did.
A top-tier Quake match (Fatal1ty vs AIM @ QuakeCon 2002)
The reality was, it was simply too one-dimensional, and this was one of the biggest reasons why shooters were considered “only for the hardcore gamers” for so long.
Halo’s new mechanics (especially the shield mechanics) made it such that it not only took longer to kill someone, but it also allowed you to disengage from a fight and “reset” it if you found yourself in an unfavorable engagement. All of a sudden, winning was not entirely about how good your aim was. You could actually compensate for your less-than-perfect aim with smarter thinking and better positioning instead! FPS combat had evolved, and it became deliberate. And, most important of all, you could experience all of this on console without compromising your enjoyment!
So, Halo was a game-changer, literally. It brought First Person Shooters to consoles, and they have dominated the gaming industry ever since (at least with the mid-core and core gaming markets).
Note: The irony is that Halo was originally being developed for PC and Mac, until Microsoft acquired Bungie in 2000 and made Halo a launch exclusive title for the first Xbox.
Even the best Shooter is still only a Shooter
But FPSs have one inherent limitation; you are stuck playing on the same set of maps over and over again. At least in multiplayer modes (the main reasons for playing shooters), there is virtually no variety in content. You learn and master the same maps, and try to get better at them through repetition. Yes, playing against different people would provide different “experiences” each time, but, after a while, the repetition started to take a toll, and you got bored. And usually within 3 to 6 months, you’d move onto a different game. This happened and still happens to every major FPS game; all Halo games and all Call of Duty titles still suffer from this, and I believe Fortnite will eventually too as well, as long as they continue to offer that same island as their only map (despite the great job they are doing with seasonal campaigns & events on that map).
From the other end of the spectrum, MMORPGs enter the scene
MMORPGs had been around since the late 90s (Ultima Online), but with World of Warcraft (WoW)’s release in 2004, it went full mainstream. This introduced gamers to multiple new core concepts in gaming;
an endless stream of new content for their games
having their own avatar that would steadily grow stronger and allow them access to all the newer content
multiplayer gaming as something more than just fighting against random strangers on the internet.
WoW brought the "MASSIVE" to the world of gaming
The combination of these new elements propelled WoW to wild success. Players were not playing WoW for only a few months before moving on; they were playing it for YEARS! Gamers were constantly fed new content to keep them from getting bored, and by 2008, WoW had 11 million subscribers paying $15 per month, generating them close to $2 billion in annual gross revenue; a level of success that no one had previously even imagined possible in the games industry.
Source: powerwordgold.net
This became the envy of the industry, and developers started to wonder how they could bring some of that magic to their own games.
Note: To be fair, #2 was not an entirely new concept to gaming. RPG games (and especially Japanese RPGs) had played with that formula quite extensively since the 90s, and saw similarly great successes for their respective parts. The success of the Final Fantasy series, in my opinion, owes largely to this, and I’ve personally always believed that EXP (or experience points) earning and the Level-Up cycle is the “drug” that makes many games addictive.
Over the last decade, we have finally come to understand this better from a psychological perspective. It’s the dopamine reward cycle (Dopamine and video game addiction) that keeps people coming back for more of that reward, one EXP and one Level-up at a time. But I digress. The point is that these concepts now became a part of game developers’ toolsets.
But MMORPGs had their own inherent limitation as well; in order to support the “massive” number of players simultaneously connected to the servers, MMORPGs were generally built around very simplistic gameplay mechanics (requiring lower server processing power and network bandwidth). Technologically and inherently, MMORPGs weren’t able to provide the highly skill-based, action-focused and responsive gameplays of FPSs.
“What if we could combine the best of both worlds?”
So began the experiments by game developers to merge the two most popular gaming genres; FPSs and MMORPGs. What if you could make a game that is fun and exciting to play from moment to moment, but also did not become boring after only a few months?
But let’s first clarify what core elements make a great FPS, and what make a great MMORPG (the bolded being the most important, IMO):
FPSs:
Solid gunplay (responsiveness & ease of control/aiming)
Well-designed maps for multiplayer
Balanced PvP gameplay
MMORPGs:
Large, Connected Online Worlds (implied: seamless matchmaking & session-joining)
Fun and deep progression system (character or content)
Great and rewarding co-op PvE content (ideally with extensive end-game content & raids)
Deep gameplay depth/variety (through skill trees & classes)
Regular content updates
I won’t analyze every attempt that the industry has made to combine the two, but there were a good number of high profile attempts made over the last decade, all of which fell short in one critical area or another. The Borderlands series lacked any end-game content and had no content updates (there was no reason to keep playing after finishing the story). The Call of Duty series (post 2007’s Modern Warfare) was lacking co-op PvE content entirely, WildStar’s PvP was imbalanced and many felt that the PvE experience was broken, and The Division lacked strong enough end-game PvE and their PvP was grossly imbalanced.
Even Anthem, which will release in just a few more days, appears to be having major structural issues that people are complaining about even before release.
It’s against this backdrop that I claim that “Destiny is the industry’s best answer so far.” Below is my personal assessment of how Destiny incorporated each of the above elements:
Destiny, as an FPS:
Solid gunplay: GREAT. To this day, Bungie has the best gunplay tech. in the industry, period (at the very least on console!).
Well-designed maps for multiplayer: GREAT. Bungie has been designing FPS maps since they made Marathon (1994)
Balanced PvP gameplay: GREAT. See above.
Destiny, as an Online RPG:
Large, Connected Online Worlds (implied: seamless matchmaking & session-joining): GREAT. They have the most advanced multiplayer session-management technology in the FPS space, and the technology that allows players to join others’ ongoing game sessions is still unmatched by even the greatest developers out there.
Fun and deep progression system (character or content) DECENT. It’s nothing to write home about, but it’s not broken either. There’s always some goal to work toward, even for the most dedicated players.
Great and rewarding co-op PvE content (ideally with extensive end-game content & raids) GOOD. As someone who played World of Warcraft for about three years and raided almost daily (Briefly ranked #2 Rogue on Horde side!), I consider the raids in Destiny as some of the most memorable raiding experiences. And even the amount of non-raid PvE content is greater than any other shooter in the market.
Atheon, the last boss of Destiny's first raid, "Vault of Glass"
Deep gameplay depth/variety (through skill trees & classes) GOOD. While perhaps not the deepest system, the sheer number of weapons and their unique perks provide an absurd amount of variety in gameplay, if one so chooses to experiment with them all.
Regular content updates. GOOD. I do wish they released them more often, but at 3-4 content drops a year (some of which include entirely new raid encounters), it’s well above and beyond what most FPS or MMORPG titles offer.
I do admit, the game can sometimes feel incoherent, and much of it still relies on replaying the same content over and over again for grinding out better gear. I also acknowledge that you do need to have friends who can play the game with you regularly. If you are playing this game solo, you are unfortunately missing out on the majority of what the game has to offer. But, despite all its imperfections, Destiny is the title that has done THE BEST job at combining FPSs and MMORPGs. And the fact that after over four years it still has a strong userbase that keeps coming back to it is, IMO, more than enough proof.
Destiny's 2019 content calendar
You’re all taking Destiny for granted
So, IMO, people who complain about Destiny are completely missing the bigger picture, and have unrealistic expectations. In this new world of AAA free-to-play, where the zeitgeist hit title can attract literally millions of players within days (Apex Legends hits 25 million players in one week) and bring in billions of dollars of revenue in a year, Destiny’s performance seems weak in comparison. But that is a distorted way to look at things.
I personally believe that a title is successful as long as it generates more money than it cost to release (I know CEO/CFOs disagree with this). Sure, some titles are more successful than others, but it’s simply greedy and harmful to complain that a title’s profit (i.e. what it earned in excess of what it cost) wasn’t big enough. Yet, that’s where we are, and that’s what people have been saying about Destiny for the last few years. All because it didn’t meet their unrealistically distorted expectations.
Disclaimer: I do not know what the game actually cost, nor exactly how much it made. And it is quite likely that the total cost around not just developing but also publishing and marketing the game ballooned out of proportion to the game’s success. That would certainly explain Activision’s general sentiment toward Destiny, but this is all speculation.
And as far as gamers’ opinions of Destiny, I believe the general under-appreciation of Destiny is coming from people’s skewed sense of value in this new Free-to-Play world. The $60 price point is undoubtedly the greatest barrier. Why would anyone buy this game when the one that all their friends are playing right now are free? And how can one claim better “value” for Destiny when the competition is free?
Sure, games like LOL/DOTA2, Fortnite and lately Apex Legends may rule the day today, but as I’ve said before, all gamers eventually mature and want something more, and when they finally grow out of games that are light on progress and content, they’ll take their hunger straight over to games like Destiny, and (re-)discover and learn to appreciate the quality and depth that those games provide.
So, I think we are in a transitional stage. And I am confident that, within the next 10 years, markets will see a massive resurgence for games like Destiny, the same way core gaming itself has seen a massive resurgence over the last couple of years (God of War, Spider-Man, Red Dead Redemption 2, Assassin's Creed: Odyssey and Smash Bros. Ultimate all broke records this year) after the Wii and Casual/Mobile gaming brought in droves of new gamers into the gaming community a decade ago!
Destiny’s Future
I usually take a long time to write my blogs. Each one typically takes around two months because I write them a little bit at a time.
When I started writing this blog back in December of last year, I did so because I was worried that Activision would soon pull the plug on this game (Actvision even voiced its disappointment back in November). But since then, Bungie has split from Activision.
"Survivor's Guilt" by Penny Arcade ^^
To be clear, I’m not one of those people who thinks Activision was the reason for Destiny’s various issues. Yes, some of the microtransaction scandals around the in-game store, Eververse were probably the result of Bungie feeling pressured by Activision to at least experiment with other ways to generate revenue. But I do believe that Bungie was in control of, and responsible for, all the biggest design flaws and shortcomings of Destiny. So, I don’t think the split from Activision will magically solve the fundamental weaknesses that Destiny still has.
At the same time, I am happy that Bungie will now have full control of the franchise’s future, and not some random CFO at Activision that pulls plugs when he doesn’t like the numbers he sees on the P&L. If Destiny dies, it will not be because of its financials alone; it’ll be because of the game itself.
My hope is that Bungie will see that they have a great game (and their director seems to believe so!), have faith, and keep it alive as the great game it truly is. And perhaps even continue evolving it into an even greater game than anyone today expects it to become (including me!).
Until then, I will continue to give it its best chance. And no matter what kind of rough patches it may encounter in the future (knock on wood!), I will continue to support it, and respect it as one of the greatest gaming franchises of all time that it is.
Respect Destiny.
p.s. I cannot wait to see what happens when Prince Uldren comes back!
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