Bungie’s upcoming MMO shooter title Destiny is set to be one of the hottest prospects of the coming year that’s set to change the entire way we approach MMOs these days. And now there’s more to follow up from that front with the developers willing to share information that were previously unknown.
In a recent interview with Venture Beat, Bungie COO Pete Parsons took the opportunity to discuss a number of things related to Destiny that will be essential to remember in the months following up to the game’s release.
Talking about the recently displayed “public space” feature for Destiny, Parsons described it as a place “where players converge.”
“No matter what their activity, they converge from all across the game. Some players might be moving through their more narrative-driven story-like experiences. Some might be going off to raids. Some might be going off to more familiar multiplayer-type activities. But all of them have this crossroads.”
He went to explain that at these crossroads, players can continue to move along in their in-game quest, “or something like a public event triggers.”
“In the demo we’re showing, a big Fallen craft screams across the sky, drops off dropships and the Devil Walker, and I can choose to just jump in. It’s certainly high-intensity combat, but it’s low-intensity in the sense that nobody’s counting on me to be the only thing between success and failure,” Parsons added. “I can just jump in, have a great time, take down something like the Devil Walker we showed, and get a reward for it. Then I move on my way. That’s a lot of fun. That’ll happen throughout the game, whether you’re playing more story content or playing other types of activities.”
Parsons also went on to state that Bungie, while dealing with Destiny’s development, faced numerous challenges, most of which came from the game’s extensive and heavy storyline. He described that one of those challenges included the issue of how to combine the game’s massive story and narrative with the public living spaces and worlds.
Parsons stated: “One is, how do you combine great story and narrative with these more public living spaces and worlds? How do you break down the barriers between what it means to be doing player-versus-player multiplayer or cooperative play or narrative play? How do you break down those walls so that when I’m investing in building and growing my Guardian over time, I can move from the story with that exact same build and exact same skills right into a multiplayer experience?”
“What’s our new 30 seconds of fun, where we’re combining space magic and deep investment in your armor or weapons? Ultimately, what does it mean when we go back to the Tower, which is a purely social space? What do I do there, and who am I meeting, and how does it send me off on new adventures?”
Parsons concluded that the team spent a lot of time working on and solving these issues, alongside fine tuning the multiplayer matchmaking system.
Destiny is currently scheduled for a spring 2014 release for Xbox One, PS4, PS3 and Xbox 360.