Seth Carter said:
It was very bog standard sci-fi aesthetics for player characters (a couple of NPCs went a bit more medievalish) for most of the first half of its life cycle though. Warlocks were complaining for the longest while about not getting robes or hoods.
Yeah, but even then, Destiny struck me as very much sci-fa. As in:
-A force called "the Light," by Guardians with names like "warlock" and "titan," fighting against the forces of "the Darkness," which include "wizards" (who come from the moon).
-The idea of a last city, utilizing walls, which is a fantasy trope.
-To quote, "Destiny was designed to be "mythic science fiction"?a world rooted in science, but with fantastical elements. Originally it was more akin to pure fantasy, with designs for knights, swords and sorcery in a white city on a hill. However, the designers thought they were denying themselves as per their preference for science fiction, so they decided to incorporate the elements together." (In other words, science fantasy - mixing sci-fi and fantasy elements together, which is pretty much the definition of sci-fa).
Granted, I say all this as someone who's never played Destiny, but as someone who has played Marathon and Halo (both by Bungie, very much sci-fi), Destiny even from the outset struck me as a shift from sci-fi to sci-fa. It also helps that there's elements of their Myth (fantasy) series incorporated into Destiny, along with tropes that began in Marathon/Halo.