In an interview with Digital Trends, Bungie engineer Roger Wolfson goes in-depth about their plans for Destiny and its sequels. Of course, they have always talked baout how the Destiny franchise is set up for a 10 year plan, but no one really know how that plan will take shape. Will there be expansions and changes to the original release, or will there be sequels, and what will happen to the character I create?
We’ve done a lot of planning for how that’s going to work, to not make people feel like they have years worth of leveling up to do
Some of those questions still linger, but that last one has been answered, he will stay with you for any future releases. The profile system is all stored in the cloud, so whenever Destiny 2 and Destiny 3 inevitably come out, you should be able to load up your old character and continue on your way.
Bungie will have to be careful though, so that new players aren’t left out of the fun. “Let’s say Destiny 2 [and] Destiny 3 are out, and we have new players joining the fun,” said Wolfson. “[They] want to play those new games alongside those who have been playing Destiny from the beginning. [We want to ensure] they won’t feel like they’re four years behind. And then, if they want to, they’ll be able to go back and pick up the old content on their same character. So we’ve done a lot of planning for how that’s going to work, to not make people feel like they have years worth of leveling up to do.”
This is especially important for those purchasing Destiny on last-gen hardware, such as Xbox 360 and PS3. Looking ten years down the line, it is nearly impossible to assume that Destiny 2 or Destiny 3 would ever see release on these systems. Allowing those players to purchase the game on a new system, and bring over their old character should be very reassuring.
Still, all of this cross-generational work doesn’t mean PS3 players will be able to fight alongside PS4 players. Wolfson explains that Bungie didn’t allow for cross-gen gameplay for a very specific reason. “I’ll speak for the hypothetical player,” explains Wolfson. “I have a disadvantage sniping across the map because [my opponent with a next-gen console] is only two pixels on my screen and I’m four pixels on his. You see that in the world of PC gaming, where people are always racing to the best video card to give themselves the advantage.”
This doesn’t mean that the last-gen releases of Destiny are poorly done though. In fact, Wolfson feels that all of the releases have been finely tuned and that players will be happy no matter what system they get the game for. “I’ve been playing some on the Xbox 360 as well as the PS4 [at home] as we head into the beta window, and I’ve been really pleased at how I can almost forget that I’m playing on a last-gen console,” he said. “There’s really no difference at all in loading, the action game is as fluid and as action-packed, there are as many combatants on the last-gen, [and] the loading times are equivalent.”
