Leaked Info Outs Bungie's Destiny as Being Similar to Halo

[MikeWehner]

Leaked Info Outs Bungie's Destiny as Being Similar to Halo

Will Bungie's next big franchise follow in the footsteps of its most famous IP?

Even as Halo 4 sends millions of gamers to local game shops with cash in hand, the series' original master, Bungie, is hard at work on its next title - rumored to be called Destiny. And if a massive, leaked blog post from someone who is purportedly involved with the title is to be believed, the new franchise is actually quite a bit like Halo after all.

The new info comes courtesy of a now-deleted blog post by a senior employee at Activision subsidiary DemonWare. The post's author explained their day at Bungie's studio, and went into a surprising amount of detail regarding a live presentation of the unannounced upcoming title.

"Everything on stage was very slick, the presenters under the spot light where[sic] very passionate and everything was well rehearsed with some presentations taking the form of sketches," the unnamed employee explains. "Most ended with a video but the most impressive was a live scene walk through demonstrating lots of atmospherics, huge amounts of trees and foliage (SpeedTree), particle effects, dynamic lighting and dynamic time of day ending in a sun set."

Wrapping up the post, the author mentions opinions from others who sat in to see the game's progress, noting "It's still quite like Halo, there is a lot of work still to be done."

Source: Kotaku [http://kotaku.com/5958165/a-big-leaked-update-about-the-next-game-from-the-halo+makers-at-bungie-plus-more-gaming-secrets]

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[Awexsome]

Im sorry but none of that description says "like Halo" to me. Sounds like epic landscapes and performance. Could be more like Skyrim for all that says

 

[Thrashgrinder]

God Damn it Bungie just make Oni 2 already.

 

[Sidmen]

When I was reading this, for whatever reason, I changed the quote to "It's still quite like Halo, except its a Medieval Fantasy Roleplaying game..."

 

[IamLEAM1983]

I don't so much read "like Halo" in a context like this. I'm reading "generic FPS setup in need of some jazzing up". It's hard to be surprised by this, Bungie has essentially become a shooter-centric dev, à la id Software. If they decided to make their first post-Halo game in any way divergent from the formula established by Master Chief, some Bungie fanboys would start spewing rather clumsily formed rage. "Y U NO LIKE HALO?!" and all.

They can't win either way.

 

[AlotFirst]

The most important question is still unanswered: Will there be a PC Version, and will it be good?

 

[L34dP1LL]

The most important question is still unanswered: Will there be a PC Version, and will it be good?

And if it has sequels, will they all come out for the pc, or will they leave us halfway there, like a handjob from a lazy girlfriend.

 

[Irridium]

So... does it play like Halo, or did they just render a scene that looked like a bigger version of Halo 3's opening level?

God Damn it Bungie just make Oni 2 already.

I can't quote this hard enough.

 

[AzrealMaximillion]

snip

That description is about as "like Halo" as my left foot.

I don't remember Halo having huge amounts of trees...

 

[Covarr]

In all the past decade, Bungie has pretty much made the same game over and over again with some tweaks; samey even by sequel standards. I wouldn't be surprised if making something different is beyond their ability at this point.

P.S. Thanks

 

[ShirowShirow]

Don't understand why they'd split from Halo just to make more stuff that's LIKE Halo. Long as it's good though I can't judge.

 

[The Critic]

Like a lot of people have saide, going from that quote, I really don't see how this is like Halo in any way, they pretty much showed a tech demo for their engine, from what the quote says. Is there some part of the blog post that we're missing?

 

[Steve the Pocket]

Didn't Halo end up going through a lot of changes during development that led to being a lot more like Marathon, as well? And I'm not just talking about going from a real-time strategy game to a first-person shooter, but there was that as well.

 

[Reaper195]

"Wrapping up the post, the author mentions opinions from others who sat in to see the game's progress, noting "It's still quite like Halo, there is a lot of work still to be done."

So...that's it? because there are a tonne of games that have dynamic lighting, large amount of trees and foliage, and vague as fuck presentations....

I was kind of hoping there was going to be some detail about the plot of game's universe. Instead we get a tiny little note with no...I guess proof?...that it's even remotely like Halo whatsoever.

 

[bl4ckh4wk64]

Im sorry but none of that description says "like Halo" to me. Sounds like epic landscapes and performance. Could be more like Skyrim for all that says

We'll just have to hold our judgement until Destiny makes it's Ascension.

That pun right there....

Gonna be honest here, doesn't really sound much like Halo at all. Then again, it really is way too early to tell with these kinds of things. Frankly, I'd be completely okay with another Halo Wars esque game, but on the PC and more thought out. (basically I only want more cinematics like the ones in the game)

 

[AstylahAthrys]

And Halo can be characterized as being quite a bit like Marathon. It will become its own thing soon enough. If it's just visually like Halo, that means nothing, especially at an early stage.

Still really excited for Bungie's new thing. Everything they make really is pretty solid.

 

[GoaThief]

Im sorry but none of that description says "like Halo" to me. Sounds like epic landscapes and performance. Could be more like Skyrim for all that says

We'll just have to hold our judgement until Destiny makes it's Ascension.

That pun right there....

Gonna be honest here, doesn't really sound much like Halo at all. Then again, it really is way too early to tell with these kinds of things. Frankly, I'd be completely okay with another Halo Wars esque game, but on the PC and more thought out. (basically I only want more cinematics like the ones in the game)

It's pretty obvious that you didn't read the source like many in this thread;

"[The group went to a local movie theatre] for a few hours of presentations covering everything from game story, factions, art, engineering, tool chain, graphics, audio, player investment mechanisms, player progression, UI, and web and mobile apps"

he then goes on to say;

"This is not a dedicated server game, but there is some simulation and coordination running in their server infrastructure. The game was up and down a lot, playing in a team of 3 we did manage to experience entering a zone to find other players already taking on the bad guys, it's cooperative so we helped out (mostly [name removed], I just died) before both groups went their separate ways. Which is a pretty cool experience, making you feel you are part of a much larger populated world.

?At the end of the day I was excited about the game, I like the feel of being in a large world with different destinations and the interactions along the way. It actually brought back a sense of exploration I recall from playing [Elite] many years ago, although there was no opportunity to shoot aliens in the face in Elite. I'm not fully sold on the appeal of being able to change the colour of a weapon, but I guess it works in China, and customization and individual identity is a big theme for the game."

So yeah, this is much more than one short line.

 

[Therumancer]

Well to be fair, Halo is so bloody derivitive that anything in the same genere is going to be a lot like it, almost every non-modern FPS is called a Halo clone, just as modern FPS games are called CoD clones (deserving or not in both cases). Bungie makes a specific type of game and apparently isn't going outside of their specialty, so the similarities shouldn't be surprising.

The big question I have though is that with them no longer controlling the Halo Liscence, how much proprietary design and tech went along with it. I've been wondering for a while if Bungie was going to get a boom lowered on it near the finish line to knock them out of the competition despite everything seemingly being friendly. Waiting until the last moment and all the dev money was spent would be the most damaging way to do it. Only time will tell.

I'm a pessimist though, I tend to consider the worst, and most sleazy, possible outcomes. To be honest I'm actually surprised when I see a company part ways with a bigger company to do the same basic thing and become the competition. I always look for the kind of bickering we saw with the various home band games, slap fighting over who owned what tech, and developed what under which liscence, and whether say a plastic mock-turntable for a video game console should be fairly considered generic or a proprietary technology. If Bungie routinely uses some very similar code and ways of doing things, it could be intresting if it's argued that code went with Halo and duplicated their previous techniques was a violation of the liscence they sold.