Five Things We Learnt From The Destiny Alpha

With Destiny's PS4 exclusive first look alpha drawing to a close, here's five things the FPS/RPG hybrid's first foray into the wild has taught us:

5. Bungie Can Still Spin A Good Yarn

Truly original Sci-Fi is almost non-existent; everything in the genre is either some manner of rehash or an amalgamation of what's gone before. The trick is to make what's on offer feel fresh and different, even if it isn't, which is something Bungie have certainly succeeded in doing with Destiny. The game is primarily set on Earth, amidst the rotting carcass of a once great human empire, within which only one city remains, watched over by a mysterious spherical extra-terrestrial construct called The Traveller.

The Traveller appeared centuries before and facilitated humanity's Golden Age of interstellar expansion, but now stands a lone, silent vigil, albeit seeing fit to bestow the last city's Guardians with a mysterious power known only as The Light. As mankind takes baby steps back into the solar system, it soon becomes apparent that malevolent alien forces have taken root, and your job is to join with fellow Guardians and keep them at bay

4. Its 'Kind-of-MMO-but-not-really' Approach Works Well

Destiny is not a true massively multiplayer experience in that you don't share a play area with all, or even a significant slice of, the player base, but rather a small number of matchmade players that you'll cross paths with now and again on your travels. This is almost certainly due to console hardware limitations, but the somewhat frugal application of other Guardians gels well with the game's desolate setting. What's more, Bungie has opted to split the game world up into large piecemeal chunks between which you can travel with your own personal spacecraft rather than presenting it as a single, seamless environment.

The game is almost entirely playable solo, save for the Strikes, which work similarly to the instanced dungeons of World of Warcraft et al.  If you don't have any friends online, an automatic matchmaking system will quickly find you some suitable team mates. Strikes can take anything up to an hour to complete, and some enemies can take a surprising amount of punishment to put down, even if your character is powerful and well equipped.

3. Competitive Multiplayer Is Not Just An Afterthought

Should you feel like taking a break from blasting humanity's foes, you can enter the Crucible for a spot of standard kill, die, respawn style multiplayer against real opponents. Here, the level and equipment gap between new and veteran players is intentionally closed in such a way that everybody gets a fighting chance. It's great fun, and has been lavished with just as much care and attention as the main game.

2. You'll Be Playing It For Months

Between the main quest, side missions, Strikes, the Crucible and all manner of social points of interest, Destiny is packed to the rafters with things to do. Clearly this is a game designed to be enjoyed, savoured and played for a very long time, which is pleasing to see, given that top tier titles are increasingly being diluted down to linear A to B sprints to the finish, with paid DLC often the only way to extend the experience.

1. Shades Of Halo Are Obvious, But That's OK

It's important to remember that Bungie is Halo; they spent the more than ten years working with the series almost exclusively, meaning you could argue that when it comes down to it, Halo-like and Bungie-like are in fact one and the same. In any case, the Master Chief would be proud of Destiny's art direction, music and somber space opera ambiance. Indeed, Destiny's Crucible is as close as Playstation owners are ever going to get to its predecessors' legendary multiplayer modes.