Oh the sad case of Destiny. How did the most anticipated game of 2014 fall so flat? A few short months ago everyone, myself included, was really enjoying the Beta, so how is it that after final release Bungie’s latest is now stuck at a Metacritic review score of 75/100 with a user score of 6.5? While review scores are definitely not everything when it comes to rating a video games worth, and user scores can be wildly erratic on Metacritic, when compared to Bungie’s last few console releases (Halo: Reach sits at a 91/100 reviewer score with a 7.8 user score), Destiny doesn’t seem to be living up to its name. Therein lays the problem. Destiny is not a bad game by any stretch of the imagination. With deep customization options, a solid (if not extremely profound) RPG element, amazing visuals, and fun fast-paced gameplay, Destiny is a great game. However what it is not is the 500 million dollar game changer that we were promised by Activision and Bungie.
Destiny’s worst enemy was its own marketing campaign. Do we blame Bungie? How about Activision? Ultimately this argument is irrelevant. The important issue at hand here is that Destiny was so overhyped that no matter what the final product was it could never measure up to the Destiny that was promised. Unfortunately Destiny was Peter Molyneux’ed, in other words an otherwise really solid game was ruined by big promises and even bigger ambitions that simply were never delivered upon. An unrealistic expectation for your game is a surefire way to disappoint fans, and in Destiny’s case this is exactly what’s happened.
Another major issue with Destiny, one to which I can personally attest, is the way the Beta was marketed, setting an erroneously high expectation for the final game. Like nearly 5 million other gamers I played the Destiny Beta, I even had the chance to play a little longer with a closed Beta code. I greatly enjoyed my time with the Beta. I am not a crazy fan of FPS games aside from the likes of Borderlands and the occasional game of Battlefield, but something about Destiny really drew me in right away. The gunplay was fun and seemed balanced, the visuals were great, and the story seemed to be the makings of a great sci-fi adventure, the likes of Mass Effect or a great episode of Star Trek. All the while that I was playing the Beta I kept thinking about how it has been said time and time again that we were playing an old build and that the final game would be even more polished, even bigger and better. So when I booted up Destiny last Tuesday I was more than ready to see what new and exciting aspects the final product had to offer. It was much to my shock and chagrin that for the first 8 levels I was playing essentially, maybe literally, the exact same build from the Beta. Cutscenes, missions, audio and visuals, it was all cut and paste straight out of the Beta, no polish, no improvements, just the same old Destiny Beta in a final product packaging. That was no Beta, it was a vertical slice of the final game, and to call it anything else is just a flat out lie, but more importantly it sets a false expectation with gamers, as it did with me. The rise of releasing finished games and calling them Beta’s is an issue in gaming all its own, however that is a discussion for another day. If the Beta was marketed as a completed final product demo I wouldn’t have felt lied to at all, but as it stands Activision and Bungie have already treated us all as fools, thinking we wouldn’t notice that the finished game was no different than the supposed, “Beta.”
I honestly believe that Destiny would have been better received (but definitely not better sold) without the massive Hype-Train pulling it along. Unfortunately I have no way to test this theory, but I would bet that if I could get ahold of gamer of any gaming taste who never played the Destiny Beta (good luck right?) and has had no exposure to the ad campaigning for Destiny (even more impossible) and let them play through Destiny, they would have a great time with it and probably rate it a solid 8/10 to 8.5/10. No, the game is not perfect; it has its flaws, from too few enemy varieties, to bad (basically non-existent) matchmaking, and a shallow overreaching story. This is not to mention the fact that Bungie opted for one area, albeit a pretty large area, per planet. I would have really loved to explore more of each planet, particularly Earth, Old Russia is only charming for so long. Nevertheless Destiny is a really solid game that gamers would not have even begun to gripe about had it not been for the unrealistic expectations set early on by an unprecedented media campaign.
So I beg you, if you haven’t played Destiny yet, or have set it aside in anger, don’t give up on Destiny, just go in with inhibited expectations, I promise you Destiny is a fun game that you will enjoy for its respectable 16-20 hours of campaign and exciting multiplayer component, if only you can curb your enthusiasm and forget all you have been told of its immense greatness and grandeur, and just enjoy it as a good game.
Clearly Destiny’s marketing campaign was a success on some level, with Activision claiming that shipped-to-retail sales exceeded $500 million dollars. You’ve taken our cash Activision, but you’ve lost a little more faith from a community whose trust in you is already waning, and you’ve taken Bungie, a developer that has always had the general favor of the gaming community, down with you.
Masters of Albion appears to be a culmination of Molyneux’s career but will this be a redemption arc for the developer?
Press Start: "Saros is an utterly sizzling romp through a sci-fi cosmic horror show that showcases Housemarque’s pedigree for spectacular, arcade action. Not only is Saros a user-friendly evolution of Returnal's core systems, which were already near-perfection, but it’s an exceptional, technical showpiece for a console that makes faultless performance seem magical. If Returnal was a reason to invest in next-gen, Saros pays that belief off again in what is currently a one-horse race for Game of the Year."
The Epic Games Store's weekly free game is dark and drear, and definitely doomed.
Here's why I am wasn't a big fan of Destiny. It just didn't feel like I was doing much. The story didn't draw me in, in fact without reading the Grimor Cards I wouldn't have a clue what's going on, and the grinding was hallow. There was a review on N4G a few days ago that talked about double standards where some games get love for grinding but Destiny didn't. I felt a little bored with Destiny because I wasn't leveling up by grinding, and I wasn't getting items and gear from it either. So there felt like no point to grinding, yet so much of the late game is dependent on it. Once you hit 20 it's all about grinding the same missions over and over for items with more Light to up your level, yet those items were so rare that grinding felt rather pointless. That's my big problem with Destiny.
...Here's the thing. A lot of the hype has nothing to do with marketing. A lot of the hype came from lies gamers told themselves based on misinformation on the internet. Destiny did not cost 500 million dollars to make, not even close. Bungie has said as much before.
Same with the MMO crap. While Bungie said that Destiny had elements of various genres, they avoided putting in a box and said they welcomed debate about what exactly it was. Yet some people ran with the idea that it was an MMO, and expected a WoW sized world, and then were disappointed when it only turned out to be huge by console standards.
The mission design is very repetitive and bland, maps are nearly empty of all but enemies, and the RPG elements are shallow and devoid of most real choice, grinding is badly done, enemies lack diversity, the story is barebones, the load times are frequent and long, and the PvP is quite unbalanced. The main campaign, free roam, and endgame are all underwhelming.
Hype or not, it's just not a very good package. The only things it really has going for it are tight mechanics and enjoyable co-op. The experience Destiny actually does deliver is average at best, and that's why it's so disappointing. It doesn't take the insane hype to realize that Destiny is just not well-designed.
I must have been the only one who's seen all the complaints about Destiny over the last few months. There wasn't that much hype with this game. Far from.
It's like gamers want to say there's hype so they can complain about a game they know won't break the mold or the like. As if we don't have enough to complain about already, people want to create more of it.