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esports
E3 Report: eSports Potential for 'Destiny'?
An interview with Bungie president Harold Ryan on Destiny's eSports prospects.
Destiny
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From the old days of carrying bundles of Xboxes and LAN cables to today’s superfast online connections, the 'Halo' series has always been a major factor in eSports. However, Seattle-based developer Bungie (who created the first three 'Halo' games and Reach) left Microsoft to join Activision and make a brand new first-person shooter called 'Destiny.' After seeing the game in action this week at E3, many of us wondered — could 'Destiny' ever become the next big eSport? We posed this question and more to Bungie president Harold Ryan.
There are a lot of multiplayer shooters out there, how does Destiny separate itself from the rest?
Well, one because we built it. Bungie puts its heart and soul into games we make. We’re ever challenging, ever questioning and ever evolving what we’re doing. The confidence I have in 'Destiny' comes from us taking the path we took for 'Halo 1.' Stepping back with the team and thinking about the kind of game we’d want to play and what we wanted to be important in a game for us and we got an opportunity to put that in 'Destiny.'
How will the matchmaking work?
It’s controllable by the designers. A lot of it is based on the system we’ve been making since 'Halo 2.' This isn’t all that different, you can be partied up and playing with your friends or encounter groups of random people. It’ll depend on how it’s actually designed.
How will the single player will be different from the cooperative and competitive multiplayer modes?
'Destiny' is really a series of different activities and you can choose to camp in public events if that’s what you want to participate in. All of the story can be played by yourself or as a group with your friends. We’re still in alpha mode, so we haven’t decided our big groups will be.
'Halo' has been a popular game with competitive gaming and eSports over the years. Is it possible for 'Destiny' to be a go-to game for eSports in the future?
It’s absolutely a possibility. The requirements needed for pro gamers to be happy I think are easy to understand and map. It’s really a question of having the resources to do it. There were a bunch of things about 'Halo' which were appealing to pro gamers, but even then they desired fully custom maps and custom loadouts and things like that. We were able to provide more of that kind of tuning for 'Halo 3.' So, I don’t think there’s anything in the design of 'Destiny' that will preclude competitive gaming from happening, it’s just a matter of having the time to provide the customization they want.
Follow Ryan Smith and Red Bull eSports on Twitter for more updates.
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