Bungie talks Destiny's connected play, Far Cry and Borderlands influence
In an interview with Edge Magazine, Destiny creative director Joe Staten took a moment to acknowledge the contributions of other open world shooters to the Destiny development process. Staten noted that the dev team analyzes titles like Borderlands and Far Cry and looks at "the things they're doing well and also at opportunities they might have missed that we can capitalize on."
One big missed opportunity according to Staten? Encountering other players in the wild:
You can party up with a group of people and then go around with that group, but never in Borderlands are you going to collide with a group of other people doing it too. We don't just do that once or twice in the game, we do that all the time, everywhere. You see other people on the horizon, hear gunfire over a hill and see space magic flying behind some trees, and you know...there are other people out here, that [changes everything].
Colliding with other people is sort of the core component of most MMOs, though Destiny may be the first big console-specific shooter to rely on such mechanics to fill out its game world. Staten also confirmed that Destiny will offer a leveling system complete with talent points -- another feature fans of MMOs will likely find quite familiar.
