Next generation of gaming has begun and developers are taking the games to a whole new level utilizing the capabilities of PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, but this is just the start so it would be some years before the developer manage to explore the true potential of the latest consoles. In that matter, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 are on the peak of their hardware capabilities and new games, such as Destiny, are squeezing every ounce out of both consoles.

Complete Round Up Of The GameInformer's Destiny Cover Story And 17 New Screenshots Of The Game

Destiny is one of the most anticipated and biggest games releasing this year. From the developer of multi-billion dollar Halo franchise, Destiny is an action role-play first person shooter video game that would be set in an open world connected environment. The game universe is designed to stay alive by in-game events that are not necessarily created or planned by the developer.

January's GameInformer Magazine came with the cover of Destiny, it contained an extensive game story analysis but not everyone wants to spend their time reading all of it, so here are the main bits from the Destiny GameInformer cover Story.

Special thanks to USplendid (Reddit) and JohnGalt (Bnet) for summarizing the GameInformer 14 page Destiny article, and thanks to HaloDestiny.net for taking out these 17 brand new HD images of the game from the magazine. All the credit of below written summery goes to these guys.

The Summery

• The Tower: Our home base where we go back between missions. There are vendors, you can turn in quest items, we can interact with other players in open plazas, and it also has class focused areas (specific designated areas) for hunters, warlocks, and titans. (Described as Earth’s Camelot)
• Old Russia: One of the first places we visit for our missions (as seen in the demo). It’s the ruins of the cosmodrome (modeled after Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan). It was an important place during the Golden Age for outer space exploration, hence all the colony ships left over unlaunched) Fallen hideout.
• Moon: Former human colony of interconnected bases. Since it’s fall, the Hive have infested building underground tunnels and the Hellmouth. Surface of the moon is now fractured.
• Venus: Used to be a scientific research facility during the Golden Age. Now the Venusian ocean is rising on the decaying buildings. Now there lies a tower called the Vex Citadel that they defend heavily.
• Mars: Used to be a heavily populated metropolis, but now is buried in the red sands of Mars. Both the cabal and vex stake claim, causing a dispute between them. Turf war.
• Race and gender is cosmetic: Your face will be visible in shared, non-combat spaces where you roam w/o a helmet. You can therefore customize your face, hair style, and tattoos are mentioned.
• Humans trying to rebuild the world
• Awoken (presumably human) survived the Collapse “but were forever changed”
• Exo are self-aware machines developed during the Golden Age and rebooted with their memories wiped (Unknown original purpose).
• Choosing a class sets a tone by establishing style of abilities: What really determines how you play is how you develop your “focus”. Each class (Hunter, Warlock, and Titan) have a class-specific focus.
• “Focuses” are the primary way we level and improve characters. Each focus advances from level 1 – 20. Within each focus their are tiers for different abilities (passive bonuses, weapon specialty bonuses, grenade types, unique movements like double jump and teleport, melee bonuses).
• Each focus has a “super ability” associated with it that can also be upgraded.
• We can switch between focuses: i.e. pick a more competitive focus for pvp and the switch to a more support focus for cooperative.
• Warlocks: start with a focus called Circle of Night - damage dealing but little protections and the super ability in the nova bomb. Heart of Fusion - a support build that’s super ability is called Radiance and call revive and buff allies.
• Titans: start with a close-quarters focus that has Fist of Havoc. In later upgrades the shockwave can be amplified, adding electric damage over time that remains in place.
• Hunters: Bounty-Hunter archetype. Stealthiness. You start off with a gunslinger Focus. Special ability is the “Golden Gun” one-shot-kill and the special movement is teleport.
• There are multiple character slots. So you can try out and play in other roles without having to delete your current character or screw up progression.
• ** Guns are not class-specific** (weapon perks are dependent on the focus and abilities you invest in).
• Armor, weapons, and focuses are meant to be synergistic. The focus you pick should be accented with appropriate weapons and armor to maximize effectiveness… but that’s up to the player.
• Primary, Secondary, and Heavy weapons use three different color-coded ammo types.
• Armor is class-specific.
• Everyone gets a ghost, as well as a customize-able personal vehicle (Sparrow) to travel in open-world environments, and a space ship that will be visible to people when you drop in and out of activities.
• THE FALLEN: Space pirates descended from a once honorable species from different noble houses. Now they are nomadic and aggressive. They originate from deep space and they have distinct sigils from the house they belong to. Souls burst from their heads when you shoot them.
• THE CABAL: Industrial, militaristic, and warmongering expansionists. The Rome of Space.
• Legionnaires: typical front line grunts that charge and shoot
• Centurions: more mobile and have jet packs
• Gladiators: huge and strong with gattling guns
• Psions: smaller Cabals that use their mind to attack and pilot giant cabal ships. (Ooze black oily liquid when killed)
• THE VEX: Mentioned to be possibly from another time and space, they got here using warp gates. Robotic bodies with remnants of organics, some are humanoid while others more animalistic. Head shots don’t hurt them as much as focusing on their abdominal power cores which oozes glowing liquid.
• Goblins: harass and overwhelm
• Hobgoblins: larger and have tails
• Minatours: even larger
• Hydras: three headed segmented machines that float in air and attack via turrets attached to each segment
• Harpies: smaller fly rapidly and occasionally open up before they fire
• THE HIVE: Ancient race that kept themselves alive in sarcophagus like ships. They typically burrow into a planet regardless of the damage it may cause and burrow tunnels and dungeon like caverns. Burst into dust and embers when you kill them.
• Thralls: mobs without weapons or armor
• Troopers: bulk of combat
• Knights: wield enormous cleavers
• Wizards: Fly overhead and unleash spells
• Ogres: mutant beasts, shoot energy from their head

Back to discussing gameplay…

• Destiny has all players together in one massive world and links you with smaller groups at appropriate locations and times.
• When entering a public place a designated number of players (solo/fireteams/etc..) will be allowed to take on the challenge (as to not allow a swarming mass of guardians during engagements). So essentially entering a public place puts you in a unique server (shard) where others can join that specific battle.
• When dispatching enemies, your XP counter ticks up and all equipped weapons, armor, and skills increase.
• Some enemies you come across will be beyond your skill/armor/weapon level. Be best to move on and come back later.
• You call on you personal vehicle to traverse land quicker with the push of a button.
• Side missions can pop up anywhere, even during another mission. You can choose to take them or not (these missions could range from escorting a VIP to safety or killing a certain amount of enemy types).
• Melee attacks are different for each Focus.
• The left bumper throws out a grenade that is unique to your Focus (it has a cool-down).
• Pressing the jump button twice executes your focus’ special movement (glide, double jump, teleport)
• Pressing both left+right bumper activates the super ability.
• Every class and focus has unique grenades, supers, bonuses, and upgrades for visual style and effect.
• You can take some enemy vehicles. However you cannot keep them.
• Glimmer is dropped by enemies and is the currency in Destiny. It is a rare, energy-based substance left over from the Golden Age.
• You can pull up an in-game map that targets locations with icons for story missions, coop strikes, competitive matches, and more… your ships will give you instant access to these locations.
• Strikes are cooperative missions that are relatively quick and team you up with others. Since strikes send you directly to locations you can choose to explore them after the strike is over.
• Raids are highly challenging cooperative story missions that are undertaken by organized groups against “insurmountable odds”.
• Competitive matchmacking occur between factions, in which factions hire you to compete against guardians of other factions. The different factions are revealed to be integral in the development of and defense of the city. (Include capturing zones, death matches)
• You begin pvp without any heavy ammo
• There is a lot of verticality (high ledges, buildings, etc…) that can be reached by movement specials by each class.
• Shifting environmental features can be used to our advantage or determent (position of the suns glare, changing mechanisms that block paths or sight)
• Weapons and armor can also improve stats and abilities. Bungie team decided to not take the route of incremental numerical differences and rather focused of more descriptive potential (like boosting speed, reducing headshot damage, enhancing a specific ability, speeding up health regeneration etc…).
• Similar to focuses, gear also has talent trees that gains exp through use.
• Four tiers of classifying gear: Basic (White), Common (green), Superior (Purple), And Gold (Exotic)
• You can only wield/equip one exotic armor and one exotic weapon at any given time but can carry as many as we like and switch between them whenever.

New Screenshots

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