The world of Destiny is going to be huge.
Granted, this is merely an assumption based off the game’s Alpha testing. But given the surprising size and scope of the playable slice of the post apocalyptic world we were given, Destiny is going to be absolutely massive.
The missions we were given for the Alpha test had us dropped in at only a couple of points in Old Russia. That didn’t necessarily mean everything was closed off, though. While some areas were guarded by NPCs that were impossible to defeat, there was still plenty of exploring to do. Take the story mission, for example, which required players to move forward towards the objective. There was nothing stopping people from turning around and walking in the opposite a direction.
“Holy crap, I decided to mess around in the story mission,” a colleague mentioned to me. “This game is huge.”
A giant environment alone does not necessarily mean that Destiny will reach our expectations, though; we need things to do as we go exploring. Bungie has given players plenty of missions that make us travel across the land, searching far and wide for our objectives. Whether or not these missions keep our interest remains to be seen. We probably won’t be able to give a fair assessment on them until Beta testing begins next month.
For now, though, we can be assured that there won’t be a shortage of sights to see or things do to. After playing through the Destiny Alpha, I think back on the game’s E3 2013 presentation, when a developer looked towards a forest and said “I want to go there, but we haven’t finished that area yet.” He mentioned that when the game is complete, players can go anywhere they’d like. It looks like that’s a promise Bungie will deliver on.