The MMO shooter Destiny breaks all dimensions. At the Halo maker Bungie, 500 developers are working on the game. In an interview, environment designer Jason Sussman talks about details in the design. Surprisingly, despite the hopeless situation humanity finds itself in Destiny, “hope” is said to be one of the most important design principles.
In Destiny, there are traces of humanity throughout the universe
Hope and inspiration, Sussman names in a conversation with gamasutra as central pillars in the design of the world of Destiny. The foundation for the story is a human civilization that has ventured to the stars and scattered in all directions. Throughout the universe, there are now traces of this civilization.
With Destiny, one wants to reconnect with science fiction times that were colorful and vibrant and shimmered with hope: “The downfall of humanity could have easily turned dark, but we absolutely wanted to take a hopeful direction in the design.”
Worlds will be shown that have fallen apart and are nearly erased, and yet life finds a new way there. Something grows and thrives: “We want to show how life can still be alive, even when humanity is lost.”
In Destiny, there should always be something to discover, and the world should always be worth a second look
From world to world, players should find remnants of another culture that once flourished and faded there. Variety is important to the designers. The zones have been intentionally designed so that players discover new things the second time and enthusiastically tell their friends in chat about what they found here.
Sussman has witnessed the growth of Bungie and the Destiny team from the front lines. When he started there, 80 to 100 people worked at Bungie. Today, there are 500 contributing to Destiny. And thus, the lead developer’s question is often: “How much bigger can you make it?”
The full interview with Sussman in English can be found in the sources. Destiny is set to be released on September 9 for Playstation 3, Playstation 4, Xbox One, and Xbox 360. A PC version has not yet been confirmed.
