E3 2014: Destiny’s new trailer shows character customization, skills, raids and more

Bungie today released a new trailer for their upcoming online shooter Destiny, detailing many of the game’s RPG and MMO-lite elements.

First up: the game’s hub, the Tower, the place where you’ll claim rewards from quests and challenges, buy and sell gear, and meet up with friends. Bungie co-founder Jason Jones points out that The Tower is “the last safe city on Earth,” home of the Guardians and the place you’ll return to after every adventure.

“In Destiny, you choose who you want to be and who you want to become,” Jone said. “You go out into the world to earn powerful weapons, cool armor, and combat abilities that change the way you fight.

“The choices you make say a lot about the type of player you are in Destiny. There are so many ways to upgrade your class and perfect your style of play.” Of course, no matter your style of play, you’ll be questing your pants off as you make your way through the long-abandoned civilization of Destiny, which is where the Director comes into play.

“The Director answers the question ‘What’s awesome to do right now, and what’s my reward for doing it?’” Jones added. It functions as a veritable atlas, directing the player to the activities currently available to them. Of course, this is no connect-the-dots puzzle; Destiny offers myriad tasks for its Guardians to undertake, designed for them to do so together.

“From the beginning, we built Destiny to be played cooperatively, either match-made or with your friends,” Jones said. “On your adventures through the world, you’ll stumble upon public events where you can join up with other players on the fly,” Jones said, “to take on huge targets of opportunity before returning to your journey, right where you left off.” These form the spontaneous missions you’ll encounter as your party explores.

Aimless exploration is an equally viable approach to gameplay, as are the game’s three-man Strikes, the raids of the game. Destiny’s end-game is the Vault of Glass, which Jones calls the “most challenging experience we’ve ever created.”

Destiny will launch for PS3, Xbox 360, PS4 and Xbox One September 9, with a possible PC version coming at a later date. It will enter public beta July 17, and is also included in the newly revealed Glacier White PS4 bundle.