Yesterday, Bungie and Activision released an all-new gameplay trailer for Destiny, the new IP in development by the creators of Halo; you can check it out below. Just at the end of the video, the release date season has been announced, and it’s Spring 2014 - just like Respawn Entertainment’s Titanfall. It seems like Destiny is going for a full frontal assault, then, but is it the right move?
As a gamer, I’d have to say no. Personally I hate when publishers aren’t wise enough to properly space apart their games, and it happens so often that we are left in a drought for months while about 15-20 games are crammed in the same month. There’s simply not enough time to play them all, and some are bound to be left on the shelf, either physical or virtual one.
From a business point of view, though, it may be the correct move. Clearly Activision doesn’t want EA’s potentially new golden goose to be able to gain a foothold in the FPS genre, and they are willing to fight in the same launch window; even more interestingly, this video announced a Destiny beta taking place for those who preorder the game in early 2014, so people will get a taste of Destiny even before Titanfall’s release - that is, unless EA and Respawn are planning a beta as well, although there has been no such announcement yet from their side.
Still, I can’t help but wonder if Destiny couldn’t be better served by releasing in Q3, for example in September. More time for the beta and development could only mean more polish and a better final product, plus some players might be already tired of Titanfall; add to that the fact that next year we won’t have a new Battlefield game (although I’m sure DLC expansions will hit regularly), and the late season could have been theirs to take.
What do you think, and are you more excited for Destiny or Titanfall? Regardless, check our hands-on of the latter if you didn’t already.
