Destiny lead designer discusses multiplayer balance

Bungie goes into a little more detail about Destiny's competitive multiplayer, going more into the challenges that will come with balancing weapons that can travel between the campaign and multiplayer.

Ozzie Mejia

December 9, 2013 3:30 PM

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With a release date for Destiny now out in the wild, Bungie is starting to divulge more details about their upcoming shooter and that includes elaborating a little more on the game's competitive multiplayer. Specifically, how will Bungie address multiplayer balance when it comes to using persistent weaponry between the game's single-player campaign?

"It's an ongoing process of trying to make sure the things that you bring in, the shotgun that you found on a strike, for example, isn't going to completely clean house when you take it into competitive multiplayer," Destiny lead designer Lars Bakken told Game Informer. "But we've got some really cool things that are going on behind the scenes that actually make it work."

Addressing rare, overpowered weapons will be a priority for Bungie, as Bakken adds that competitive matches will be faster-paced than they were in Halo, thanks to ambush tactics and higher-powered primary weapons. Balance challenges will also come from class variety, as Bakken says that each class will feature unique attributes, such as the Titan getting additional resistance while sprinting. It's an idea that will extend further once fully-developed characters are introduced to multiplayer.

"The really interesting thing is, being able to bring your character across is really crazy," Bakken added. "It's one of those things that you think, 'ah, whatever,' but then when you play it: you start, you create your class, you start at zero, and you're leveling up your character, and you're finding these new weapons, you're finding these new pieces of armor, you're going on these missions, you're doing cinematic story missions, you're doing some of our other activities. Your character is growing and changing, and then taking that character with you into multiplayer is a super satisfying experience."

Of course, there's going to be a sector of Destiny's audience that would rather stick solely to multiplayer, but Bakken alludes to some unrevealed information that he hopes will entice those players into the campaign.

Destiny is set to release on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3. The beta will kick off in the summer, with Sony console owners getting first dibs.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?