I can't remember the last time a game caused me to feel so much like an outsider looking in, seeing everyone around me marvel at a game that makes me feel so indifferent. That's Destiny, a game we were told for years was the next big thing. I can certainly understand where the confidence in such a claim would come from, I mean it's Bungie, the company that played a huge part in establishing the original Xbox as a viable platform and then did the same with Xbox Live via Halo 2. Here they are, operating (seemingly) without any corporate overlords dictating what the game had to be and when it had to be out. How could it possibly fail? It's as sure a bet as you're likely to find in an industry filled with people looking for the safest of bets.

Something went wrong though. Oh I'm sure the game will be declared a hit in some way, Activision has invested too much for Destiny to be deemed anything other than a hit, even if Metacritic and a divided audience don't necessarily agree. Bungie have certainly created several gorgeous worlds and environments with character designs and overall art amongst the best you'll find anywhere. The feel of the game is top notch too, this is Bungie's bread and butter after all, if they were going to get anything right it was going to be the shooting and traversal. Where the game fails so utterly is making me care about any of that stuff. I've gotten my Warlock up to rank 26, played all the strike missions, a load of bounties and world based missions, played through the campaign missions (some several times). I've done all of this and I still, after tens of hours invested, couldn't tell you anything about what any of it means. That's crazy and it's certainly not intentional. This isn't some off-beat quirky indie game that wants to leave everything open to interpretation. This is a big budget, appeal to the widest audience possible console shooter by a developer who in the past has shown a great knack for world building. Again, tens of hours in and I have no idea why I was doing anything. There's something about a big globe like machine called the traveller and a 'darkness' trying to destroy it (I think?). But after that? I got nothing. What I did get was the most rudimentary and laziest of tropes. I mean 'the darkness', what is that? Sure there are a load of enemies that I only know are enemies because Dinklebot tells me they are and they shoot me on sight but as for what their goals are, why they do what they do I've no idea. What's more mind boggling is that in Halo you again had enemies made up of several different races but the game made it very clear who they were, what they wanted and why they needed to be stopped. Now, the game throws some tidbits your way and lets you know that should you fail (you won't) the darkness will destroy the traveller who has somehow been protecting earth but has been unable to communicate. How has it been protecting Earth? No idea. Just from looking at the game I couldn't tell you what the hell the giant floaty thing has been doing, after all, it needs you to go do all the shooting (a lot of shooting) on it's behalf which again you only know because Dinklebot tells you.

Perhaps the biggest sin the game commits with its story is in hiding the lore behind 'grimoire' cards which are basically story beats you read on the Destiny website. This is ridiculous and completely lazy. The campaign has 16 or so hours to weave its tale and it completely wastes them, opting instead to have Dinklebot throw out jargon after jargon, expecting you to know what the hell any of it means. What keeps popping in my head is the beginning of "Fellowship of the Ring". The beginning of that film tells the story of the One Ring from it's creation to loss, spanning decades. It does this incredibly efficiently within the first 15 minutes or so of the film. 15 minutes...compared to the 16 hours Destiny has and it still couldn't get me to give a damn about any of what was happening. The finale of the game is so limp, so lifeless and without build up that my party (most of which actually like the game) gave a collective "that's it?" when it was all over.

Now, one of the biggest misconceptions of game development is that if a game is in development for a long time then there will be an equal amount of content. Not so, and never has this been made more clear than the case of Destiny. I can only assume a lot of the development time with the game was spent trying to figure out what the game actually was and everything led from there. Mission design shows this with every mission without exception being a 'go to A, press square, fight a wave of enemies' cycle. Compare this to Halo where one mission you're driving in all guns blazing with a Warthog and the next mission escaping a crashing ship and it only becomes more disappointing. I just can't understand how the game made it's way throughout development without the story and mission design being pointed out as hugely undercooked. Bungie is too smart a company to not notice these things. With that in mind I can only assume they have a very solid follow up plan post-launch with updates and mission packs. We know for sure some are coming via DLC but most of the problems mentioned above should be fixed as regular updates. Bungie have encouragingly shown some signs of doing this but there's a long road ahead if they want to keep the game relevant. I'll be very curious to see how populated the game world is by December, when COD and other big year-end releases have arrived to take peoples attention. For now there's not a whole lot else to play and Destiny is reaping the benefits of this but that benefit has to end and may do so sooner than expected with 'Shadow of Mordor' getting great reviews. Admittedly that's a single player game but it will still eat a chunk of the audience playing Destiny for the sake of having something to play on their new consoles. Bungie are going to have to be very smart with their post-launch plans to keep the game relevant and I look forward to seeing how they cope. Again the game is too big to be allowed to fail, but for me I see the game as a big beautiful shell. It looks beautiful on the outside but once you get past the exterior, there's just nothing there. A body without a heart...a game without a pulse.