Current and former Bungie employees, some fired, some who quit, some still employed but frustrated, are more than willing to talk about all aspects of the company right now through leaked information. We heard about Destiny 2’s new plans before they were announced, there has just been a bunch of Marathon info dumped (some of it by me) and now we’re doing the Destiny mobile game, Destiny Rising.
The main info here comes from SkillUp, Game Post and I have some too, and here’s a recap of what’s going on with Destiny Rising, the upcoming mobile game that’s been in the works for years.
- Destiny Rising is years old and yes, it is still going to be released despite all the turmoil at Bungie.
- The game is made almost entirely by NetEase, formerly of Diablo Immortal, based on a very old investment deal with Bungie, where very few Bungie employees have worked on the game. NetEase was reportedly not wild about Bungie selling to Sony.
- Destiny Rising is a prequel to Destiny 1, and will not be some sort of way to play Destiny 2 on mobile.
- There are reports that while it mirrors Destiny gameplay, it is a third person shooter, not first person, so I’m not quite sure how those two statements go together, and I do wonder if it is not in fact an FPS. But that’s what Game Post says and I can’t confirm otherwise.
- The game is hero-focused, where you will play as both characters from Destiny history during an older era (no characters are listed, but ones like Zavala, Ikora, Shaxx, etc would be a safe bet). Plus some new ones. One report says this might be in the series’ Warlord era.
- The game reportedly has missions, strikes and possibly even a raid, but this has been tough to implement given that mobile playtime sessions are supposed to be pretty short to keep tiny attention spans in place. I’m not sure if PvP is involved here.
- There is some sort of narrative attached to this, which is part of Bungie’s contribution, not NetEase’s.
- I’ve heard that the closest parallel here is absolutely NetEase’s Diablo Immortal, a game that was lambasted by core Diablo fans but has gone on to be a moneymaking hit producing frequent new content. It’s unclear how the game will be monetized and if like Diablo Immortal, it will have pay to win mechanics/purchases.
- The target audience is not western Destiny 2 players. It may not even be existing Destiny players at all. I’ve been told this is “100% aimed at the Asian market” where invasive microtransactions are more than commonplace and less poorly received.
- There’s no real clue when this is going to launch despite being in the works for years. Many are surprised it hasn’t even been teased yet. My theory is that maybe it’s ready, but Bungie does not want to pull a Diablo Immortal and announced a mobile game fans will be skeptical of when the base game is in a rough state and player morale is low.
- Supposedly Bungie will not really be heavily involved in the marketing and most of that will be on NetEase. Bungie was content to “let NetEase do whatever they wanted with the game.” Presently, Sony has essentially nothing to do with it, though obviously it will be in their portfolio.
This is not to say current Destiny 2 players can’t enjoy the game, just that they are not necessarily the target market here, and whatever microtransaction model this does have may be fashioned to appeal more to mobile gaming in general and specifically, the microtransaction-heavy Asian market. But yes, for better or worse, this may be Destiny Immortal.
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