Reaching For The Stars: 5 Things You May Have Missed In The Destiny Beta

The Destiny beta may not have let us travel across the solar system – instead restricting access to mother Earth and a sole expedition to the Moon if you played over the weekend – but that doesn’t mean there was nothing to learn from the temporary experience. On the contrary: Bungie’s first offering of Destiny’s gameplay to the public has helped to answer some burning questions you might have had about how the game actually feels and how its previously confusing structure works on paper.

But in case you missed the opportunity to get a hands-on with one of this year’s most anticipated releases or just overlooked some interesting features, here are five things that you should know about the game before it releases in September.

5. Manual Matchmaking Exists, But So Does A Pseudo Instancing System

Probably the most noticeable feature to appear on this list, as you’re likely to experience it within the first hour of play, Destiny not only features the standard, manual matchmaking system for you and a couple of friends to team up and play, but it also has an instancing system built into every facet of its gameplay.

If you’re not familiar with how MMORPG’s (massively multiplayer online role-playing game) work, instancing is a system that replicates a certain part of an open, shared world so that multiple players can play the content without being bombarded with hundreds of players all on screen at once. While it’s still not completely clear how Destiny’s matchmaking system works, it appears that each area will have a hub world of sorts (in the beta’s case, this is Old Russia) where players can interact with each other, with an instancing system being put into place when story missions are attempted. 

Many of these take place in dungeon like areas where respawning is limited to either having to be revived by a teammate or having to respawn at the beginning of the area rather than on the spot where you perished. However the system works, what’s most noticeable is how seamless it is. Every time a ‘dungeon’ is entered, you’ll automatically be paired with two other players partaking in the same mission. Obviously, this won’t be an option if you play offline, but being able to call on the help of others without having to sit through a tedious lobby system is an extremely good idea. 

4. Peter Dinklage’s Voice Work Sounds Much Better With Sound Distortion

Many players who had the chance of playing the Destiny alpha build noted how flat and unenthusiastic Peter Dinklage’s voice sounded as the player character’s Ghost companion:  a small, floating metal orb that acts as the player’s guide. Whether Bungie arguably intended to do so or not anyway is unclear, but Dinklage’s voice work has now been spliced together with some speech distortion effects to make his voice not only sound less human, but also more authentic in relation to the world that’s been created

Whereas the actor originally sounded uninterested in the dystopian and ruined world that he was leading the player through, his vocal makeover has added some much needed personality to the performance. Considering Ghosts are remnants created by The Traveller – the giant metal orb you see in all the promotional media for the game – it never made sense to have a human voice coming out of alien technology anyway.