Dissecting the Art and Screenshots of Bungie’s Destiny
If its not a little obvious by now, you might have gathered that we really like Destiny, and heck, why shouldn’t we? This is the first game from a company that did so much for the console world with its first major title, in comparison to those that have released dozens of titles.
With the unveiling of Bungie’s Destiny complete, we have a wealth of information to be pulling apart to hopefully give us a little bit more of an insight into this rich new universe. We have the first trailer, we have rough expectations on what we can likely expect, but what about the local and environments? What can we really expect there?
Gamebreaker takes on the task of dissecting the concept art and screenshots from the Destiny universe in order to help you (and ourselves!) get a better insight into Bungie’s brand new universe.
Guardians/Knights – aka YOU!
As with most games, players take on the role of the games main character in order to edge the story forward at their pace. In Destiny, We know that players take the form of what Bungie call “Guardians” or “Knights”. These are the last remnants of humankind that are sworn to protect whatever we have left, whilst using powerful weapons left to us by our over looming guardian known as “The Traveler”
So what else do we know? Well we know that there are three distinct character classes in the game named “Titan”, “Hunter” and “Warlock”. Getting straight into the art and screenshots, in one particular piece we can see that each class has its own different look, builds and weaponry.
The warlock apparently is a “magic” based class, probably similar to the Siren in Borderlands, opting for cloaks alongside a very sleek looking armour. The Titan (Hey Bungie, Blizzard called) has more of a Brutish commando look about it, most likely favouring small arms/Assault rifle type weapons. Finally the Hunter – well this doesn’t take much of a genius to work out, as generally both the name and images imply a stealth, sniper class. In a few images we can see characters with grenades attached to the belt. For show, doubtful, but will most likely be a tactical choice in game play.
Although only concept art, each of the classes represented seem to have different styles or armour, different cloaks etc, so most likely these will be things customisable by players in the actual game.
Tango down – Enemies
The basic principle of Destiny is that the final remnants of humanity exists in a single hub, underneath The Traveller. Elsewhere on earth, other alien civilisations have moved in, claiming it as their own and building their own fortifications. Everything you knew about Earth, is no more. This is THEIR land now.
Destiny introduces us to new races The Fallen, The Kabal and a number of others that are yet to be formally named, including time travelling robots!
Back to the concept art and almost immediately you can pick out “the bad guys”. In one particular piece we have our human allies holding back a wave of a particular alien species that to me, look something the collectors from Mass Effect. Arms out stretched and fire in the scene….are these creatures magic wielders too? Or just exposing themselves… Yet more interestingly we see some smaller three eyed creatures. Lesser aliens of the same race? Or slave/cannon fodder A-la the Grunt/Elite relationship in the Halo Series?
Second on the Enemies concept piece and we get a sneak peak of both The Fallen AND the Kabal. Now we don’t know if the Kabal is a race of its own or a unit type. Either way, in the image where we have the Hunter stalking some of the enemies we have a distinct differentiation between The Fallen, which we know to be an insect type species, and the more than imposing Kabal. Both are glowing green, so I’m wondering if these are working in unison. As for what to expect? The Kabal seems to be a tank like creature, almost like a mix of Halo’s Grunt meeting a Hunter. I’m expecting these guys to be the heavy hitters of The Fallen army, if they are in fact working in unison. Where as the Fallen creatures are most likely the generals and infantry units, acting more for tactical pursuit.
Finally we get a look at the Time Traveling Robot….because everyone needs time travel robots? More humanoid in approach, we Can’t really detect anything special from these guys other than they use hand held pistols and rifles. More than likely going to end up being one of the most irritating enemies in the game, no doubt warping around the map just as you take aim, but again, that’s just a guess. We certainly have a variety, but how much variety.
Location, Location, Location
Bungie is truly bringing out all the stops with Destiny. In the past Halo games, as much as people praise them, the locations were pretty much always the same. Jungle. Sci-fi tech structure, with the occasional urban setting. Destiny looks set to take things up once again for the company. Built on a war torn earth that is mostly abandoned, I think its safe to say we’ll have plenty of locales to take our fancy, each different from the last.
In true MMO style, Bungie seem to be fleshing out the world by providing a game that has so many unique landscapes, its simply breathtaking to think about. In the concept art we see deep, dank jungles which is fully contrasted by another setting that appears to be out on snow filled plains. Throw those out further and you get Urban landscapes, deserts and judging by some of the screenshot captions, even space fairing locations such as the deprived colonies of Mars and long forgotten space ports.
We get a few examples of the potential enemy structures and hub zones within the game too! Each acting as a rich mental to help get players enravlled in their universe.
So thats about it for the first in our series of artwork and screenshot dissections. We’ll have more in the coming days as Gamebreaker covers Destiny.
For more images, be sure to head over to www.destinythegame.com and whilst you’re at it why not check out our other articles on all things Destiny;
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