Think what you will of the annual VGAs (Video Game Awards) over in the States, but the Geoff Keighley (yes, that one) hosted show does tend to manage to pull in the odd exclusive. This year’s big reveal was probably Destiny, Bungie’s new first person shooter / MMO hybrid, details of which were leaked overnight to sites like IGN.
Bungie no longer tend to the Halo franchise, but Destiny was always seen by many as a spiritual successor to the series. “Bungie has confirmed to IGN that the document was prepared by an advertising agency and represents an outside look at Destiny’s plot, key values and more,” said the site, confirming that they’re at least representative of the game’s visual direction.
“Go ahead. Take a peek,” said the developers in response to the leaks. “It’s alright. We weren’t quite ready, but we will be soon, and we can’t wait to finally show you what we’ve really been up to.”
They’re definitely not images from Bungie themselves, that has been cleared up elsewhere, but they are showing the sort of design work that’s going into the game, which will be multi-format. There’s also some details in amongst the concept art, which go some way to explaining what’s going on in terms of the game’s story.
“Our story begins seven hundred years from now in the Last City on Earth, in a Solar System littered with the ruins of man’s Golden Age,” says one of the leaked images. “A massive, mysterious alien ship hangs overhead like a second Moon. No one knows where it came from or what it’s here for, but only that it’s our protector.”
“Meanwhile, strange, alien monsters creep in from the edge of the universe, determined to take Earth and the Last City. We are young ‘knights’ tasked with defending the remains of humanity, discovering the source of these monsters and – eventually – overcoming it.”
We’ve known the game would be called Destiny for a little while now after legal documents mentioned the title back in May, although we first picked up on the game back in February 2011.
It’s not 100% clear whether this was one of the games that Keighley was touting as a major VGA exclusive, but it’s likely – he Tweeted “well that just happened” last night, which could well be in reference to the leaks. I’m sure there’ll still be plenty to nibble on away from the leak though – it’s highly likely to be a video anyway.
Bungie, being understanding of the leak and reacting in the right way, posted another image from the game themselves.
BrendanCalls
The characters in blue and red both look like a composite of different parts from Tali’Zorah and Legion from Mass Effect
Kennykazey
I wish this wasn’t an MMO, but let’s hope Bungie can pull it off.
cc_star
I’m currently getting into Sony’s Planetside 2, to be honest I still don’t really know what’s going on, other than I’m dying a lot & progress is tough – it feels like a better & bigger version of MAG.
I imagine Destiny will be similar, although it may be more coherent than I’m finding Sony’s current efforts, although I am enjoying it so hopefully it will ‘click’ with me soon.
Kennykazey
I’m making my third attempt at downloading Planetside 2 as we “speak”. Steam keeps wiping the previously downloaded files for some reason.
If we’re lucky, only the multiplayer aspect is MMO, and there’s a fully fledged single player campaign, but that’s a long shot.