Destiny - Everything you need to know

Destiny has been one of the hottest topics in gaming for over a year now. The next game to come from the studio behind Halo was always going to be big news, and ever since the first piece of concept art was released back in 2012 we've been dying to gather up as many details as we could. 

Now that we have a release date of 9 September we can start counting down the days until it arrives. We've put together everything we know about Destiny below.

The basics

The easiest way to describe Destiny could be by calling it 'the sci-fi action of Halo combined with the looting and character upgrades of Borderlands and mixed into an online world with MMO elements', but even that might not do it justice. This project is so huge that Activision is willing to pump $500 million USD into it to make it a success. Bungie likes to call it a "shared-world shooter", flummoxing players all around the world as they Google search the term, but it's probably an accurate one.

Unlike more traditional MMO games, Destiny features on-the-fly matchmaking. So instead of seeing every other player in the game on a particular server, you'll only be able to interact with players who you're matched with. A lot of effort has been put into the matchmaking to make sure it runs discreetly in the background, and Bungie is hoping its algorithms are able to match like-minded players together so they have the most fun.

It's also a persistent world, so you can just stand and watch the sun set and rise as the hours go by if you're that way inclined. And it's a sandbox, so you can move around as you wish and explore different planets or head back to one of the hub cities.

The emphasis in Destiny is definitely on teamwork, forming groups with other online players and going off to conquer bosses in different areas and uncover some tasty loot.

The story

700 years into the future and mankind is close to extinction. Humans went through a booming period for exploration and peace, while advancements in technology led them to colonise other planets and brought them to a Golden Age. But now that's all over, after an event called "the Collapse" brought about the end of these colonies, leaving the only known survivors left back on Earth.

Survival on Earth was made possible by 'the Traveller', a white celestial body that hovers above the last remaining human city. Hostile alien races have taken control of mankind's old colonies and are now shifting their attention to the City. The only people standing in their way are the Guardians, who have a power referred to as 'The Light' due to the presence of the Traveller.

You are a Guardian

This is where you come in. Players will be taking on the role of Guardians and they're split into three races: Humans, Awoken and Exo. They're identical in gameplay but they offer different story roles. You'll also be able to choose three different classes: Titan, Hunter, Warlock.

Each class has unique focus abilities and we've detailed them below:

Titans:

• Fist of Havoc - melee attack that sends enemies flying
• Void - a bubble shield for members of your team to hide behind

Hunters:

• Golden Gun - three thermally charged shots from a hand canon
• Arc Blade - lets you pinball between enemies and electrocute them on the way

Warlocks:

• Nova Bomb - an area-of-effect mega-blast to scatter groups of enemies
• Radiance - buffs the stats of all team members for a limited time

Classes will also offer other useful abilities, such as taking less damage for a period of time or faster sprint speeds, and combining them with the focus powers is key to succeeding.

Finally, each class has a different jump ability and melee attack. Hunters can double-jump and throw knives, Titans have a jet-pack and a running shoulder charge while Warlocks can glide and perform an energy-draining move on enemies

Enemies

Those enemies will be made up of aliens and other beasts, and they're given different ranks to indicate their toughness. There are low ranked enemies like Fallen Dregs and Shanks which won't require much effort to see off, or higher ones that have special abilities themselves.

That includes Vandals, who are stealthy and have cloaking powers, Fallen Captains who can use personal forcefields and Wizards that levitate and fire energy balls straight at you.

The enemies you come across will be different every time you take part in a mission, so you'll never be able to work out an exact strategy because you won't know for sure what's coming at you. Each public area will have a mini-boss that is much harder to stop, and you'll have to use teamwork to come out on top. You'll be given certain objectives, like stopping him from reaching a checkpoint, and doing so rewards you with new loot.

Fallen players can be revived in battle so as long as one of your team manages to stay alive then the fight will continue. Should you all die, you'll be sent back to a checkpoint to regroup and start over.

Weapons and looting

Finding new items and weapons around the world is one of the main features of Destiny. There are randomly placed treasure chests in each area that contain loot such as Glimmer - cash used to buy items and upgrades - or natural resources called Engrams. You can take Engrams back to the hub world and pay someone to turn them into useable items.

The contents of each chest is stored locally for every player, meaning you can't have a member of your team going round and grabbing everything for himself.

All gear is tiered so you'll have basic items and more advanced ones, and a lot of the time players will have to wait until they rank up to be able to use what they've found. All weapons have attributes which affect your character's stats in some way.

You're allowed to roll three active characters at the same time and happily there's a trading system in place so you can switch items between your characters. This means finding a great item for a Hunter while playing as a Warlock shouldn't be too disappointing, as you can simply trade. Weapons are available to all classes but other items such as armour are class-specific.

Levelling up 

Levelling up is done by gaining experience, while gaining experience is done by killing things, completing missions and finishing activities. Everything can be levelled up, including your focus abilities, and you'll need to spend Glimmer to make the upgrade.

You can freely swap your abilities, but after a while you get the chance to "lock-in" your decisions. This will mean you're stuck with whatever abilities you've decided to unlock for the rest of the game, but as a result your Guardian will become more powerful with a stat boost.

Bungie is making it so that players will have to hit a certain level before they can leave the game's campaign and try out the Player vs Player sections. This is so that players will know enough abilities and have good enough equipment to be able to compete, instead of just being blown away.

Reaching the level cap has been described as a quick process, and once players hit the cap they can take part in six-player Raids and higher levels of Player vs Player. Details of Raids will be coming at E3.

Always-evolving

Bungie's work won't be finished when the game finally lands. The studio will be bringing something new to the world of Destiny every day, whether that be new activities, challenges, achievements or gear to collect. The 500-strong team of developers behind the project has already planned for the future, attempting to build a game that has no apparent end.

Oh, and probably the best piece of information regarding Destiny: Even though it's an MMO there's no subscription fee and you only have to pay a standalone fee. That's something to celebrate.