Archief - Destiny

Raids are “extremely crafted,” six-player, friends-only gauntlet runs that might best be described as gut-checks. Yes, they will be difficult, and they will absolutely require communication and cooperation. That’s why Bungie isn’t supporting matchmaking for them; the developers don’t want them to be played by disparate groups of strangers. But Smith is quick to point out that they’re not like Strikes – the instanced dungeon-like runs that might take a mere 20-60 minutes – but more like MMO raids in that you’re going to want to buckle up and get comfortable for a couple hours.

“The activity is going to take you and your group of five buddies into a place that you’ve never been,” Smith explains. “A place that you will return to frequently. And [it will] demand of you things you’ve never even really been asked to do in a shooter before.”


That’s not to say raids will be impossible, but this is Bungie, after all – a studio famous for challenging fans with the Legendary difficulty setting in its Halo games: “One of the things we have never talked about – we haven't really talked about raiding at all,” Smith starts. “One of the things we certainly haven't talked about is that [raids aren’t] an activity that we expect you to get through the first time through.

“Unlike a bunch of the other activities in Destiny, where you begin the activity – like let's say you pick the level-22 Strike playlist – everything in that activity is going to be level 22. It's going to be consistent. If you're level 26, you're going to have some relationship to it. You're going to be more powerful than that activity. In a raid, when the raid begins at level 25, it's not where it ends. Like part of going the raid is the journey of gearing up; building your arsenal to react to the situations that it's going to ask you to go through.”

In other words, you’re going to suffer. But it’s going to be a fun kind of suffering that makes for a better water-cooler moment with your friends later. And that will be partly fueled by the mystery involved. ““We don't adhere to any of the standard rules for the rest of the game,” Smith says. “Like, raids don't have waypoints, they don't tell you where to go, they don't tell you what to do.”



But what is it about raids that separates them from the rest of the game? Smith is quick with an answer:

“I think the E3 experience video [Ed. Note: See above] had the narrator talking about the hardest thing we've ever built and we showed a jumping puzzle. Like, the hardest thing we've ever built is a jumping puzzle? The jumping puzzle is just one part but it's this interesting representation of the philosophy behind a bunch of the raiding which is taking something simple, something that you've done, you understand, and then asking six of you to do it together. In a nutshell, that's some of the philosophy that was driving raid design as we were building the first raid in Destiny.”

Surely something this epic and involved has to have an ultimate showdown, right? A boss? “Obviously we're going to have big cool bosses,” Smith reveals. “I think that we've given people a taste in Strikes of what the bosses are and what they can do. The raid bosses are different: they're still big monsters, much like what you're going to see, they're still scary, but they have a bunch of abilities that are unlike anything you've really experienced in a shooter before. And I don't say that to be a douchebag and I don't say it because it's a cool bullet point, I say it because when we were building this thing there was nothing that any of us could go home to play to try and learn from. I mean we were – as we were going – building and learning and failing along the way to find cool mechanics and occasionally we'd succeed.”


Raids are far from the only post-campaign high-level activity at your disposal, however. While Bungie confirms there will be no “New Game Plus” mode, you will be given reasons to want to come back on a regular basis. “A lot of what's going to drive you is going to be logging in every day, seeing what's in that featured activities pane on your director, and then going into the Tower to get your bounties for the day,” Smith says.


Asked what a Nightfall activity is, Smith explains: “Nightfall activities come in two flavors: daily and weekly. They have extremely exotic rewards.”

We want to have activities that occupy the range of challenge for you,” Smith says, changing gears slightly. “So if you're a fresh level 20 you can play the Nightfall daily activity at level 22 and it's going to be hard. It's going to be challenging. But you can get through it, maybe. Maybe if you have some friends. The weekly Nightfall activity is something that pushes all the way out as far as the leveling allows you to go in Destiny. So it ends up occupying at the far end of the spectrum: this extremely high gameplay investment challenge. Like it's both the toughest guys we can throw at you that's going to require the best gear, and it's going to have a bunch of modifiers on it that make it even harder.”

Back to the smorgasbord of endgame content. “After level 20 there are a bunch of Strikes that become available to you,” Smith adds. “So the first thing that you're going to jump into is probably Strikes and PvP. In Strikes and PvP you're going to be accumulating reputation with the Vanguard, and also currency. And you use that currency potentially to buy legendary gear, faster Sparrows, so it's this one axis.” We can also look forward to a daily story chapter, Smith adds.