Destiny

Destiny was Bungie's first major game after leaving the Halo series behind, and it arrived with the ambition of merging a console shooter with a shared online world full of loot. The player takes on the role of a Guardian, a revived warrior protecting the last human city, and travels to Earth, the Moon, Venus, and Mars, encountering missions, public events, and hostile factions with distinct behavior. Along the way they choose between three classes with their own super ability, grenades, and movement style, though the differences become most noticeable later in the game.

The core is a loop of shooting and gear collection. The gunplay was among the best in the entire genre, with every weapon having its own rate of fire, recoil, and personality, and hunting for better pieces can keep players engaged for dozens of hours. Alongside story missions, the game offers cooperative strikes for three players, demanding raids for six coordinated teammates requiring communication and role assignments, and competitive player-versus-player modes. The raids in particular became the highlight of the entire game, and their puzzle-like mechanics are still remembered as some of the best cooperative content of their time. On Xbox One the game ran smoothly and excelled in its depiction of abandoned landscapes.

The music is monumental and melancholic, and together with the art direction it creates the feeling of a vast, silent universe after civilization's fall. Contemporary reception was mixed, since the story felt fragmented and there was less content at launch than players expected, while the gameplay earned praise. Expansions gradually improved the situation, and the game laid the foundations for the entire shared looter-shooter genre. Today Destiny is seen as an important, if imperfect, pioneer. Anyone wanting to play this specific version will especially appreciate the excellent shooting and cooperative raids, which still have few equals. For everyone else, it remains a fascinating record of how console shooters first tried to transform into a long-running live service.