In the wake of the generally well-received beta, Bungie has responded to fan concerns over the size and scope of Destiny’s world, after it emerged that each in-game planet will only contain one explorable location.
Though the studio hadn’t confirmed the number of environments up to this point, many users expected each stellar body to boast a variety of playable areas. However, during a recent Twitch stream, the studio’s community manager David Dague confirmed that this was not the case.
“Yeah, we’re calling them destinations,” Dague explained. “You go to Mars, you go to the Moon, you’ve got Venus, and you’ve got Earth.”
Dague also went on to outline the parameters of Destiny’s universe, which will incorporate co-operative and competitive play across those four aforementioned settings. So, in the case of our own home planet, players who venture toward Earth will only be able to explore the Old Russia locale glimpsed in the beta.
And while fans expressed their disappointment at this announcement, Eric Osbourne — another community manager at Bungie — reassured budding Guardians that Destiny remains the largest game the studio has ever created.
“With Destiny, we’re looking to exceed what we’ve done before, not just in terms of scale – the Moon is our smallest destination – but in terms of scope and breadth of activities. That’s true for day one, as you expect, but it also means we want Destiny to have super long legs.”
Of course, given the scope of Bungie’s sci-fi opus, additional content will surely weave its way into Destiny’s universe in the months and even years after launch. Moreover, this extra content won’t be solely oriented for multiplayer action in the vein of Call of Duty et al; rather Destiny DLC will be skewed across co-operative play, too.
Destiny is set to launch across PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, Xbox One and Xbox 360 on September 7th.