Destiny wasn't a failure, it was one of modern gaming's greatest triumphs

Fortune has been the butt of many jokes over the years, and for good reason. Bungie has made a lot of stupid decisions, from shockingly rolling out changes to character customization to screwing up the launch of an entire expansion. But despite these faults, die-hard fans have always stuck around, knowing that the highest of the highest is worth it.

I wouldn't consider myself a hardcore gamer these days, I've played all the campaigns and expansions over the years and spent hundreds of hours on Destiny since it was first released in 2014. I've done the rounds and consider myself a fairly experienced player of one of the greatest first-person shooters in history. That statement may sound like hyperbole, but I say it with sincerity, and hope that its unfortunate conclusion does not cloud the legacy of fortune in unfair assumptions.

Since Destiny was revealed to the world over a decade ago, many believed it to be the greatest game in the world, and many times in its history, I think it has delivered on that promise and then some. But nothing lasts forever, especially when the studio that brought it to life is acquired by a company that seems bound to make bad decision after bad decision. So, as the development team is separated and fragmented, I'd like to summarize Destiny's long history and why it will always hold a special place in my heart.

Destiny is still the best-feeling shooter on the market

I knew when Destiny was first announced that it would feel incredible to play. Bungie has spent the past decade redefining shooters on consoles with the Halo franchise, and left Titan behind after pushing the formula as far as it could go. It hopes to do something more ambitious with its next game that includes more weapons, more abilities, or a world with stories and characters to meet.

I remember pouring hours into both its alpha and beta trials before starting university and quickly seeing the potential, grinning like an idiot as I snapped a perfect headshot at an approaching Fallen. The gunplay in Destiny was always top-notch, and no other competitor outside of Titanfall has come close to matching how awesome it feels to play.

And its gameplay has only gotten more refined with each new expansion, whether Bungie introduced new weapon types, how it felt to switch between loadouts, or simply made the act of equipping armor and building your collection feel truly meaningful. It's a core part of Destiny that has kept players coming back despite countless competitors trying and failing to replicate its innovative gear system.

Nothing beats gradually increasing light levels but of course knowing that when we prepare for an attack drop, we will still be ready for the fight of our lives. From a gameplay perspective, Destiny is a peerless shooter experience that I doubt will ever be beaten.

When the first Destiny dropped and was rightfully lambasted for its absurd story and characters, the gameplay was still praised as among the best out there. You can jump through impeccably designed spaces to fight enemies big and small who give it their all, and over time, the level design has only become more refined to meet the demands of the player.

What I love most about Destiny is the relatively straight-forward nature of story missions, strikes and dungeons followed by raids that tell the player nothing. You need to find this out for yourself. Spending hours on a freshly abandoned raid and reaching the end with a group of friends feels amazing, and much more so than traditional MMORPGs.

Bungie has never been afraid to learn from Destiny's failures

Now that Destiny has received its last live-service update and most of the talent that had a hand in bringing it to life over the years has been fired, I fear that people will soon dismiss the game as a failure. It just didn't have what it took to continue in a landscape dominated by Fortnite, Roblox, and Call of Duty, despite the massive talent behind it.

While I'd love for Bungie to be more responsive and live, this isn't the type of game that can survive on a licensed crossover and instead needs to constantly build its world. It tried with Star Wars, and it just didn't work, while Sony isn't willing to spend the time or money necessary to make a fully-fledged sequel a reality.

But to claim that Destiny has never learned from its failures or listened to its fans is an outright lie. For a long time – especially after the launch of The Taken King and during the lifetime of Destiny – it was one of the biggest online games in the world.

Destiny 2 The Final Shape cover art featuring all the main characters overlaid on a space themed background

People logged in each week to see what Xur was selling, while the updates leading up to each new expansion kept people like me on tenterhooks waiting to see how the Light and Darkness saga would finally play out. Each new expansion was a huge deal that broke player count records as Destiny was put back on the map. When the Witch Queen arrived, it was a bigger deal than ever. Now, a few years later, it's gone.

As both a fan and critic, it was fun to follow the decision-making logic employed by Bungie and how it tried to listen to fans and please its corporate overlords. The first game was forced to push out weak expansions that, while the potential was always there, didn't deliver until The Taken King. It then had a brief period of independence, before Sony came along and slowly but surely brought the fortunes to the ground.

Once The Final Shape began and the decades-long saga came to an end, I think both Bungie and Sony struggled to figure out how to move forward with Destiny. Small updates were no longer enough for a light but passionate audience, while the overall value of the original acquisition was grossly overestimated, and everyone suffered for it.

Sadly, things didn't move forward without a huge investment that Sony wasn't prepared to provide, and here we are. As a live-service shooter released by Sony, Marathon has already become public enemy number one, I fear that Destiny will hide the stigma associated with the genre in the same camp as it gets old for a long time.

Now, as Destiny fades from the modern gaming consciousness and is remembered as another casualty of the current landscape, I want us to remember how many times it has sat on top of the world and helped innovate within both the shooter and live-action genres with creative mechanical ideas, unmatched combat, and visual identity. It wasn't a failure, this time is simple, and Bungie has no choice but to move on.