An Early Gripe with Destiny

 

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Bungie and Activision are sinking jillions of dollars and hours into Destiny, which they’re hoping is the next big video game franchise as their former creation, Master Chief, continues to age.

I do like what I’ve seen from the game so far, including a buttload of concept art. The pieces are above and below are from Ryan DeMita and are all rather fantastic from an artistic perspective.

Part of the game is choosing a class, then decking them out with a ton of armor and weapons, hence the variety we see here. But I’m not the biggest fan of every character in the game being masked at all times. From what I can tell, you will never see your hero without their helmet.

As anyone who has bonded with their Commander Shepard or Saints Row hero can attest, being able to see your creation’s face is sort of a big part of empathizing with them. As cool as all these armor sets are, it’s not really creating a character, it’s  just shopping in Mandalorian Monthly.

Perhaps this only bothers me, but if I’m going to invest that much time into building up a character, I want to see what’s under the hood. Even EVE Online has a crazy amazing face generator, a game where you’re in a spaceship 99.99% of the time.

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2 Comments

  1. On one hand I can see where you’re comin’ from, but on the other I think back over my childhood and many of the truly iconic characters I can think of, were faceless in one sense or other.

    Boba Fett, Darth Vader, Judge Dredd, Predator, Jason Vorhees, Michael Myers; these are all characters I think of as the masks they wear rather than the faces beneath.

    How well it works for Destiny will depend mostly on the kind of story they wanna craft.

    Build a person or build an icon. From my own impressions so far and taking Bungie’s history into account, I feel that they’re going for the latter.

    Personally, I’m optimistic! Even though Halo never really hooked me like it did so many others, Destiny has already solidified itself on my MUST PURCHASE list. Lookin’ forward to it!

  2. There was a video clip of two men talking and if you notice the red coat he wears, it is the same clothing the hunter is wearing during the e3 presentation. so i assume we will be able to customize their face or at least be able to see a pre designed one

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