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In-depth at E3: Bungie’s Sussman on Destiny’s first-look alpha and beyond

At E3, Stevivor had the chance to sit down with Jason Sussman, Senior Environment Artist at Bungie, on the day Destiny’s first-look alpha was released to the public. We talked about what to expect from the experience and beyond.

“It’s a super exciting, tense, emotional, hopeful time – it’s really, really cool to have it out there, and not only be able to finally talk about [Destiny], but have it in people’s hands,” Sussman said.

Sussman has been with Bungie for seven years, working on titles like Halo 3 and Halo 3: ODST. Both titles involved environments on the planet Earth. Still, Sussman’s work on Earth and its surrounds on Destiny has been quite different.

“Working on Xbox One and PS4 has been great,” Sussman said. “Having a foundation of what we’ve done in the past, we can really spread our wings. The amount of content and fidelity we can have… well, it’s been great.

“It’s nice, because choosing our own solar system and Earth was a very conscious decision early on. We wanted the familiar. By putting science-fiction on the familiar, we can amplify those spaces. It’s something we’ve always planned to do, and it’s been nice. We’ve done Earth before, but this is Destiny’s take on it.”

destiny-peaceful

The move to a new IP meant new things for Bungie. “Anytime you get a chance to start afresh, it’s very relieving. We love our legacy, and it’s awesome to see it live on. With Destiny, it’s been a pleasure to venture out in a broader way for the studio, and to challenge ourselves in a lot of different ways.”

Sussman said one of the biggest changes was how players can customise their in-game Guardians.

“We had character customisation in [Halo:] Reach, and you could customise Spartans [in other Halo games], but it was all aesthetic. The amount of content that you can customise in Destiny is infinity larger,” Sussman said. “Each one of these pieces of armour, you can upgrade and add abilities to. You can speed up your super-charge, and tailor what you’ve got to your own play style.

“Ship customisation is currently aesthetic. We want to give the player that rock ‘n roll, hero vibe,” Sussman said, laughing. “You see ships when you go to the Tower; you can see your friends’ ships come in and dock. If you’re in the loading zone, you’ll see that ship come in and drop down. We’re definitely showing off your hot rod. You can go to the Tower [Destiny’s social hub] and upgrade and buy ships, and you can have different ships at one time.”

destiny-tower

Those playing the alpha will be able to take on three types of missions – Strike, Story and Exploration – alongside the game’s Crucible multiplayer. Sussman had some tips for those jumping in.

“I use the Warlock,” Sussman said. “I use this move that I call the ‘Warlock high-five’. You can run around and do the melee and be like, ‘pop! Now you’re vaporised, buddy!’ I love it.”

There’s a level 8 cap in the alpha, so it should provide gamers with incentive to play with different character types to really understand how they play.

“The Hunter has some really great abilities later in the game, so I switch between the Warlock and the Hunter,” Sussman added.

While I had the chance to go hands-on with Strike – expect my impressions shortly – the Crucible multiplayer shouldn’t’ be overlooked. After all, Bungie was behind well-designed, responsive multiplayer environments all throughout Halo’s run.

destiny-crucible

“The Crucible is pretty cool; very different from what you do in Strike and Explore missions,” Sussman explained. “You can take all the experience you’ve gained and bring that into the Crucible. Once there, you can go ahead and use that really awesome grenade damage you love.

“The Crucible is much more vertical; everyone has abilities. There’s much more versatility in the space, and we’re actually showing for E3 and for the alpha, Control, which is one of our game types.

“Within each of these spaces, there are three points you try to control. The secret is to at least control two. I stick to A and B on Rusted Lands [a map available in the alpha] and sit back with my friends at A and we’ll guard and build up our supers, so if we need to retake a point, we can just throw out that super straight away. People have to cluster around those flags, so supers take people out in one fell swoop.

“In First Light [the other alpha map], you can use the Kabal Interceptor, which is a tank-like vehicle. You also have an agile vehicle much like the Sparrow, but with guns. If you’re not a vehicle person, you can run around the interior which connects all objectives.

“In the Crucible, and everyone’s taken all the vehicle, every Guardian has a Sparrow in their pocket, so you can pull that out and speed around the map faster. And on the Sparrow, you can immediately hit jump and fly off that thing so you’re straight back into the action.”

destiny-customise

Best yet, those new to the Crucible aren’t necessarily going to be stomped by those who’ve been playing the alpha non-stop.

“Our Crucible, moreover, is about skill,” Sussman said. “You can play a level 4 player with a level 20, and the Level 4 player can dominate because we equalise the player’s health and damage. All the perks and abilities you’ve unlocked are still there, but it really comes down to skill. That makes for a really cool experience.”

A change in IP certainly meant a change in the way Bungie designed its multiplayer maps.

“We ran through a bunch of different iterations; when we first started developing multiplayer, we went through a lot of different layouts to figure it all out,” Sussman said. “With some abilities, we were like, ‘oh, wow – people can get to this area now.’ With some of our multiplayer design, it really got turned on its head and we had to throw things out. It really is new and feels different.

“The basics are there – people are going to be able to pick up a controller and say, ‘oh, this feels like a Bungie multiplayer experience’. I think it’s that, but broadened and evolved.”

destiny-ships

By the time you read this, the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it alpha has ended, but the data obtained from those who played it over the weekend is invaluable to Bungie.

“[Destiny] is a hard game to quantify and say, ‘this is what it is.’ The alpha is a great way to do that,” Sussman maintained. “There’s just so much content, depth and personalisation in this game. And it’s not just personalisation for the sake of it – it’s not aesthetic – it’s very custom to how you play the game.

“We’re tweaking and fine-tuning and seeing how people play in the alpha. We’re testing everything, and then tweaking for the beta. We’re treating the beta like a full launch, of course, but there’ll of course be tweaking on that before the full game too.”

If you had a chance to play in the Destiny alpha, let us know what you thought of the game in the comments below. If you couldn’t get in, stay tuned for our impressions.

Destiny will be available on Xbox 360, Xbox One, PS3 and PS4. Its beta begins on 17 July, and a full retail release follows on 9 September.


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About the author

Steve Wright

Steve's the owner of this very site and an active games journalist nearing twenty (TWENTY!?!) years. He's a Canadian-Australian gay gaming geek, ice hockey player and fan. Husband to Matt and cat dad to Wally and Quinn.