During the lead-up to it’s release, Destiny suffered from an identity problem when presented by Bungie. It was slated to be the next big shooter by company with a well known pedigree for the genre, but it would to attempt to mix in RPG statistics with a loot game. It would also try to present a persistent online world with numerous activities to do at any time, but the creators didn’t want to classify it as an MMO. Class and character customization would be a feature so everyone could tell their own story, but the extent of this customizing was left nebulous at best. The general gaming public seemed to be intrigued if nothing else that Bungie would be delivering on a new experience that they couldn’t classify.
In the end however, the vague remarks seem not to indicate a new breed of shooter, but rather a game that seems to have a sort of identity crisis that lacks focus on what exactly it wants to be. Halo mixed with Borderlands or Diablo is probably the easiest shorthand to what Destiny is most analogous to, yet this new intellectual property, perhaps one of the most hyped games for this console generation, leans heavily on it’s predecessor. What we get is something that is familiar, not revolutionary. There’s a solid foundation of game here, but so many divergent parts to the experience that you end up with a slightly hollow experience.
