Bungie’s Destiny New Details: Story And Public Space Explained

Bungie COO Pete Parsons took to explaining some of the different aspects for the developer’s upcoming persistent online shooter Destiny.

Parsons first clarified the Public Space as “where players converge.”

“In the end, what we wanted to show is that you come in and have your own really tight personal story that we feel good about delivering — whether you do it by yourself or with friends — but then when you proceed in that story, you come into a public space. That’s something that everyone will experience.

In the Public Space, players, “no matter what their activity, they converge from all across the game. Some players might be moving through their more narrative-driven story-like experiences. Some might be going off to raids. Some might be going off to more familiar multiplayer-type activities. But all of them have this crossroads.

“At that crossroads, they can continue to move along in their journey, or something like a public event triggers. In the demo we’re showing, a big Fallen craft screams across the sky, drops off dropships and the Devil Walker, and I can choose to just jump in. It’s certainly high-intensity combat, but it’s low-intensity in the sense that nobody’s counting on me to be the only thing between success and failure.

“I can just jump in, have a great time, take down something like the Devil Walker we showed, and get a reward for it. Then I move on my way. That’s a lot of fun. That’ll happen throughout the game, whether you’re playing more story content or playing other types of activities.”

Parsons also revealed that Bungie “faced a number of challenges with Destiny”, especially with the heavy storyline.

“One is, how do you combine great story and narrative with these more public living spaces and worlds? How do you break down the barriers between what it means to be doing player-versus-player multiplayer or cooperative play or narrative play?

“How do you break down those walls so that when I’m investing in building and growing my Guardian over time, I can move from the story with that exact same build and exact same skills right into a multiplayer experience? What’s our new 30 seconds of fun, where we’re combining space magic and deep investment in your armor or weapons? Ultimately, what does it mean when we go back to the Tower, which is a purely social space? What do I do there, and who am I meeting, and how does it send me off on new adventures?

“We spent tons of time trying to solve all of these things, let alone what happens on the back end, where all that seamless matchmaking happens. What are the tools we need to develop to build so much content over time? How does it continue to grow so you feel like you’re a part,” he said in an interview with VentureBeat,

If what we saw a E3 2013 was any indication, we’d say the developer is on the right track. Destiny is currently slated to release in Spring 2014 for Xbox One, PS4, PS3 and Xbox 360.