Destiny is a massively multiplayer online shooter developed by Bungie, the creators of Halo.
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Story & Themes
In the near future, humans have landed on Mars. When they get there, they discover the Traveler, which looks like a giant white sphere resembling a manmade moon. The Traveler takes an interest in humanity and shares technology that allows humans to dramatically increase their lifespan and terraform the solar system. Centuries after this Golden Age of humanity, the Traveler's ancient foe known as the Darkness catches up to it. All human cities but one on Earth are destroyed. The Traveler sacrifices itself to protect humanity, becoming dormant and creating the "Ghosts", which seem to be artificial intelligences that live inside little hovering orbs. When the story begins in Destiny's present day, one such Ghost is searching ruins on Earth for something. It turns out that that something is the long-dead player character. The Ghost brings the player character back to life. The player character is a Guardian, someone who is able to use the Traveler's "Light" as a weapon. The Guardians travel the solar system fighting back against the Darkness and protecting the Traveler from it.
Save Points
Destiny saves automatically at checkpoints.
Difficulty
The story missions are moderately difficult, but should be very manageable for anyone who has experience playing first-person shooters. Co-op multiplayer content, which happens after you reach the level cap at 20, can be considerably more difficult. There are different levels of endgame content in terms of difficulty.
Heads Up!
Violence In Destiny's story mode you only shoot at vaguely humanoid aliens, so it's fairly tame as far as Shooters go. There is a competitive multiplayer mode where you of course shoot at other player characters who can be one of three races (one of which is human, the other two are more similar to humans than enemies encountered in the story mode), but you're all wearing full-body armor that obscures the face, and there isn't really any blood or gore.
Consumerism Being an MMO, Destiny will likely encourage users to buy expansions, map packs, and the like in the future.
Discrimination Players can create characters of either gender, with several options for different skin tones and facial structures. Destiny isn't exactly big on storytelling or character development (which is typical of MMOs), so sexual orientation and the like doesn't really come up. Destiny characters don't have much in the way of personality or personal life.
Online Community
Currently, you can't chat with anyone whose group you haven't joined. Even when in multiplayer games, competitive or co-op, you will never hear anyone else's voice unless you accept their group invite or invite them to join your group.
Conversation Starters
What are some of the costs of war? Is it ever justifiable?
Destiny encourages players to get better and better "loot." Why do you keep playing a game, and how do you know when it's time to take a break from it?
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