Tag: Destiny

PlayStation boss praises Destiny where other live service games ‘failed’

Hermen Hulst is a huge Bungie fan.

Hermen Hulst, head of PlayStation Studios, is still buzzing over the company’s  acquisition of Bungie. Who can blame him since Sony wants  more live service titles, and the makers of Destiny  know how to make good games in the genre.

In an interview on the PlayStation Blog, Hulst didn’t mince words about Bungie’s success over the years, particularly with Destiny.

“[Bungie’s] work on Halo was phenomenal, in my mind some of the best shooters in history,” Hulst said. “And then there’s Destiny, a series still going strong after eight years, I think. Many people have tried to build a successful live service, and failed. Because it’s really hard. So Destiny’s success is very special.”

Hulst isn’t wrong about how making great live service games is hard. For every Call of Duty: Warzone, Apex Legends, or Final Fantasy 14, there are dozens of titles like Hyper Scape  that don’t last. The  PS5 is noticeably lacking  when it comes to these kinds of games from first-party studios, so Bungie is a good fit.

When discussing what Bungie might work on for PlayStation, Hulst didn’t elaborate much.

“I’ve spent a lot of time with folks like Jason Jones and Pete Parsons, and some of the senior team over at Bungie,” Hulst explains. “And let me tell you that everyone’s very excited for Bungie and PlayStation Studios to share ideas, share some of our battle scars as well. And really, just learn from each other.”

We’ll probably learn more once the acquisition deal closes.

Written by Kyle Campbell on behalf of GLHF.

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5 moments that defined Bungie’s history, from Halo to Destiny

Let’s explore the rich history of one the most long-standing studios in the game industry.

Bungie has just celebrated its 30th anniversary, becoming one the most long-standing studios in the game industry. In a world where software houses are founded and shuttered, this is a massive achievement for the label behind juggernauts like Halo and Destiny. Over the course of these 30 years, Bungie has managed to grow into an FPS maestro, pioneering innovations with every release, while leaving traces of its DNA across all of them. In this article, we’re going to explore its rich history, identifying the five moments that have defined its first 30 years around, starting with its foundation, up until the divorce from Activision, the last publisher the studio worked with before finally becoming independent.

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Former Destiny and Halo composer urges fans to ‘destroy’ music he wasn’t supposed to share

Martin O’Donnell had to post a statement as part of a court order.

Martin O’Donnell, the former Bungie composer, asked fans to ‘destroy’ Destiny  music assets he shared publicly without asking for permission.

As reported by Eurogamer, O’Donnell was found in contempt of court over using Destiny assets, specifically early renditions of Music of the Spheres, that were uploaded to his YouTube, Bandcamp, and Soundcloud pages in 2019. O’Donnell did not have legal authority or Bungie’s permission to do so, resulting in him having to post a message on his social media pages urging fans to destroy any of the Destiny 2 assets he shared. 

“I do not have, and have not had since at least April 2014, the legal authority to possess or distribute non-commercially available material related to Destiny  or Music of the Spheres (including material I composed or created while working for Bungie),” O’Donnell said on YouTube. “This material is owned by Bungie.”

O’Donnell continued: “If you posted any of these assets on a website or other publicly available platform, you should remove the content immediately. If you have copies of these assets, you should refrain from sharing and destroy any copies of them. This request does not apply to any Destiny  or Music of the Spheres material that you lawfully obtained from commercially available sources.”

You can watch the video from O’Donnell below.

Both Bungie and O’Donnell agreed upon the message as part of a court order. Additionally, O’Donnell will refrain from commenting further on the situation.

O’Donnell is one of gaming’s most celebrated composers, having done the music for every mainline Halo  game up until  343 Industries  took over the franchise. He then went on with Bungie to work on Destiny’s  initial soundtrack before the two parties went separate ways.

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An AI imagines what ‘Destiny’, ‘Zelda’, and Hideo Kojima look like with terrifying results

You’ll never look at your favorite video games the same way again.

Ever wonder what your favorite video games would look like through an AI-generated lens? Well, thanks to  ai_curio_bot  from Bearsharktopus Studios, there’s a Twitter bot more than capable of showing you the nightmare-inducing results.

All you have to do is tweet at ai_curio_bot with a specific prompt followed by whatever you would like to see horrifically recreated by the bot. For example, I sent it “botprompt: Link from The Legend of Zelda on an air mattress” because why not.

I doubted that ai_curio_bot could yield anything recognizable from this request, despite the heaps of evidence suggesting otherwise. Several hours later, a rather disturbing notification popped up in my mentions that you can check out below. 

There’s definitely an air mattress in the artwork, but I’m unsure how that twisting eldritch horror qualifies as Link. Is that his blue tunic off to the left? Maybe. I think his hairline is in the center, too. Either way, I wasn’t planning on sleeping tonight anyway — never using a Nintendo Switch again, for that matter.

Naturally, gamers are having a ball with ai_curio_bot. From Destiny’s Traveler to  Hideo Kojima himself, the bot successfully makes me question if humanity officially has too much sway over the universe. Check out some of the, uh, more creative results for yourself below. 

Written by Kyle Campbell on behalf of GLHF. 

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‘Destiny 2’ players are unhappy about its new Trials of Osiris skill-based matchmaking

After seven wins, you’re flawless.

Competition is always best when the teams are evenly stacked, right? Well, many Destiny 2 wouldn’t agree, especially now that skill-based matchmaking is part of the Trials of Osiris PvP mode, Kotaku  reported Friday. 

If you’re not in the know, Trials of Osiris is a 3v3 competitive mode in Destiny 2 that yields loads of great loot for whichever team wins. Developer Bungie wants to make this mode a bit more accessible so that more people can get rewards, as for a while now, getting annihilated by the best players is all too common.

“We are also not happy with the experience of players who have a bad streak of getting repeatedly thrashed 5-0,” Cozmo, community manager at Bungie, said on Bungie’s blog.

“So we are enabling some matchmaking help if someone runs into several blowout matches. This temporary help mechanic clears up once they start winning again, so don’t think someone will cheese a flawless by tanking for a few games and then have a weekend of smooth sailing.”

Basically, if someone is losing, they’ll get matched up against people who are also struggling, while people with seven wins in a row will move up into a ‘flawless’ rank to face others that win more often.

It might not sound like a big deal, but Destiny 2’s PvP community thinks this matchmaking assistance will lead to many issues. Some of the suggested outcomes are folks throwing matches to give their buddies an easy reward to people dropping the mode entirely after attaining the flawless rank. 

The tweets below represent both valid concerns and plenty of over-the-top meme goodness.

Written by Kyle Campbell on behalf of GLHF.