Destiny public beta to open in July

Destiny has already been called the most expensive game ever, reportedly costing over 500 million dollars. With such a sum spent on the product and with Halo developer Bungie being the driving force behind the project, the game has quite a lot of hype behind it.

Naturally, one of the things people will be most interested in, is getting access to the next generation MMO.  Interested fans and critics alike can rejoice as during an investor call today, Activision Blizzard revealed that the public beta is going to come out sometime in July.  While the beta was rumored for this summer – with Playstation platforms being the first to get it – this does give a much more specific timeframe to wait for.

The information comes following a report that the company had overall profit loss of 35% this quarter compared to last year, but with the aforementioned investment in Destiny, it’s clear that both Bungie and Activision have a lot of faith in the upcoming franchise starter.  And yes, it is a franchise starter as Bungie is contractually obligated that during the 10 year license agreement signed with Activison, they will develop four more Destiny games. It remains to be seen if the every other year game will be a brand new product, or if Destiny will take the route of expansions much like the current MMO leader World of Warcraft.

The downside of the tremendous hype behind the game is – of course – the expectations. As these get higher and higher, it puts a lot of pressure on the game to succeed and offer an MMO experience unlike any other. It remains to be seen if Destiny is the game destined to shatter the genre defining characteristics embedded by WoW, characteristics that can be seen even in recent titles such as Elder Scrolls Online, or if the game will only create a collective sigh of disappointment through ought the gaming industry.