From the same company that made the popular gaming franchise “Halo” has come a new science fiction game, “Destiny”. Bungie, the popular video game company that has made video games like Halo, Oni, Marathon, and Myth, has left the Halo franchise in the hands of 343 Industries for their new game Destiny. Destiny is an MMO, a massive multiplayer online game, that symbolizes RPG type level ups, leveled enemies, missions, characters, and items in the form of science fiction. Destiny is now the highest selling new game with a whopping 325 million dollars in sales. Here’s probably why it sold so many copies in such a short span of time.

The story starts near the present day just after humans launched the first men to Mars. The humans sent on the Mars mission find the Traveler which gives humanity advanced technology and knowledge to build colonies on Mars, Venus, the Moon, and Mercury. However, a dark force known as the Darkness follows and hunts the Traveler and brings utter destruction to Earth and its colonies.The gameplay starts after a Ghost, a part of the Traveler (ghosts are built to protect Guardians), finds you and revives you from being dead for what I presume to be half a decade. You play as a Guardian in which before starting the game can select from three different types of classes: Titan, Hunter, or Warlock. Titan revolves around more powerful special moves; while Hunters revolve around precision and accuracy. Warlocks mostly revolve around using magic for their special abilities. You can create up to three characters which gives you a chance to try all three classes. You start off running from an alien race called the Fallen, an evil species that invades and hunts other species. About two-three minutes in you get your first weapon and then you have to fight your way through the Cosmodrome, a port that colony ships would launch from. This mission then leads you to the Tower which is where you are able to buy all of your items, armor, weapons, and you can even dance with other players. The rest of the game is up to your choice, mostly.

You can decide whether to do story missions, explore, do strikes, raids, or play competitive at the Crucible. Story missions help you advance in the story and help gain you levels to which you can buy higher grade items, armor, and weapons. Explore missions are basically free roaming maps in certain areas. You don’t have a specific mission but you can acquire one if you’d like.

Explore missions in my opinion are basically areas to get more experience to level up to higher levels which is not a bad thing at all; although they do get boring after a while, which Bungie has helped sort of eliminate that. They’ve has added random events such as defense missions in the exploring mission such as an enemy ship flies in and you have to defend an item or something, this gains you extra experience and items. Also Bungie has put out loot crates across the map for you to find and explore to get glimmer (the currency in the game), and also possible equipment.

The strike missions are the most difficult if you’re under-leveled. These are basically really difficult missions that could gain you really good items but if all of your team dies you must start all the way over. It is important to know that the strike missions are extremely long if you’re under-leveled and can’t kill enemies easily. In strike missions you always have a team of four players online, this helps you span out if enemies are overloading you and you need help.

Raids are six player co-op mission; raid missions are usually difficult. Raids are different from story missions and strikes because they do not give you waypoints and objectives. Instead the players must figure out what to do themselves. Raids do not support matchmaking and must require communication to be able to complete the mission. This requires you to have heavy duty equipment to be able to have a shot in the raid. Raids are by far the longest missions in the game as they can take hours to complete. Raids reward the player with one piece of armor and also an exclusive legendary-leveled weapon.

The competitive multiplayer (aka the Crucible in this game) aspect is iffy with a lot of players, although Bungie has also fixed the leveling system when entering the PvP (player vs player) system by making higher leveled players have their weapon damage and armor defense lowered. This lets the PvP aspect be equal and all players get a chance to win. There are multiple PvP maps among the different planets such as Earth, Venus, Mars, etc. There are certain NPCs (Non-Playable Characters) in the Tower that provide specific Crucible weapons.

Among all of these different types of missions Bungie adds to the replay value by offering Co-Op and Competitive free events such as the Iron Banner (which rewards players with higher leveled armor, more experience, and access to special armor at the Tower). Many more events are to come.

After you reach level 20 it is possible to access higher levels up to 30. This is acquired by purchasing certain armor that holds Light. The best way to get this armor is by doing bounties after finishing the main story. This allows people to play the game more to get higher levels, and who knows maybe Bungie will increase the level cap as possible DLC (Downloadable Content) is released.

With all of this in mind I would give Destiny a 10/10. All aspects are great and give the player many different options and experiences. The story is interesting all the way around and the competitive multiplayer is fun and fair. The strikes and raids add on to the replay value as you can get more gear to do even more strikes and raids. Destiny is a great game and I think everyone should give it a shot. Farewell, Guardians.