Destiny developer Bungie has spoken to Edge about how its game stands-out from co-op shooters like Gearbox's Borderlands and what it does better.
Joe Staten, Destiny's creative lead, admitted that players can use Talent Points to level-up in the game and Bungie were inspired in this and other aspects by games like Far Cry and Borderlands.
"We are absolutely doing things that would be familiar if you've played any kind of open-world game," Staten said. "I mean… Far Cry, even. We would be idiots if we didn't look at an awesome game like Borderlands and ask, 'What are they doing well and how can we try to that same ball?' I have never played a game where I have such a great attachment to my gun as I do in Borderlands.
"When we look at a game like that, we look at the things they're doing well and also at opportunities they might have missed that we can capitalise on. You can party up with a group and then go around with that group, but never in Borderlands are you going to collide with a group of other people doing it too.
"We don't do that just once or twice in the game, we do that all the time, everywhere. You see other people on the horizon, hear gunfire over a hill and see space magic flying behind some trees, and you know… there are other people out here, that [changes everything]. Borderlands right now is: 'I'm going to walk into that space and we're going to clear them out and keep going'. And frankly that's not just Borderlands, that's any co-op shooter."
Destiny's inspirations aren't just limited to shooters, Bungie has looked at TV shows including Battlestar Galactica, The Wire and Lost. NASA is also seen as a "constant source of inspiration" for the game and Dr. Craig Hardgrove of the US space agnecy's Jet Propulsion Laboratory is somehow involved in the project.
