The MMO shooter Destiny is now receiving some love from gaming magazine testers. The rating aggregator Metacritic is climbing by 10 points.
“The best 6 out of 10” of all time, was joked in between. Because when Destiny was released in September 2014, the sales success was enormous, but the testers’ enthusiasm was not.
Ratings for the base game came in quickly and harshly
The ratings settled at 76 out of 100 (PS4) on Metacritic. That’s not exactly something you can triumphantly parade around with. With the rating systems that circulate in the gaming industry, that’s approximately a 3, maybe a 3+. Disappointing given the effort and high expectations.
The first reviews came early, even before the first raid opened, and they showed the weaknesses of the game: Confusing story, no satisfying conclusion, falling short of expectations. 60 positive reviews were met with 34 mixed and one negative from the professional testers.
Major and important US sites like Gamespot or Polygon even gave the game a 6 out of 10. The equivalent here would probably be “Well, it’s not that terrible.”
Destiny: The hottest 6 out of 10 of the year
This very 6 out of 10 was later worn by the Destiny developers in a kind of defiant statement on T-shirts. The nickname “the hottest 6 out of 10 of the year” circulated. Subtly, Bungie made it clear that they felt poorly treated and reduced to the weak story. They hinted that many of the testers who rated it so poorly had spent hundreds of hours in Destiny after their tests, and their ratings would look very different now.
But, the mood changed increasingly: Even the sites that wrote weak reviews reported essential information about Destiny throughout the year and found themselves in a dilemma explaining how a “6 out of 10” could receive so much attention.
Expansion of Destiny “The Taken King” receives more love
A year after the release of the base game, “The Taken King”, the new expansion, has now been released. Bungie has expanded the story, extended the campaign, addressed some of the weaknesses. Now the reviews look very different.
Metacritic has seen an 8-point rise. It is slowly settling at 84 (PS4). 53 professional reviewers give a positive rating, with only 4 having a mixed review, and there are no more negative ratings.
That’s quite good. A solid 2, perhaps a 2+. From major US sites like IGN, it now receives a 90. Game Informer, who rated the base game strong at 88, has gone up to 95, Polygon to 85.
And as is customary in such cases, they took bold and praising words from critics and the highest ratings and stitched together a “The critics love it! Buy it, it’s great” trailer. That would have been difficult a year ago.
