All that work for nothing? That’s what Bungie is telling those who took part in their recent beta.
Those who played during their select time frame while Bungie was testing their server capacity will be receiving an in-game nameplate for their profile.
But Bungie’s weekly update revealed the rest of the character progress, acquired loot, and various collectibles found throughout the game will be wiped away for the full release.
“If the rest of you haven’t gathered the painful truth from the eulogy yet, our Beta characters won’t transfer to the final version of Destiny. The vaults have been cleaned out, too.”
While disappointing, it’s not all that surprising given Bungie’s history taking the same action with the betas of both Halo 2 and Halo 3.
Still, the beta was a massive success for Bungie/Activision. Over 4.6 million players played the Destiny beta and the mass amount of preorders for the IP is on a record-breaking pace.
No major changes to come just before release, but some minor tweaks and changes to clean up any issues are being made to tune the gameplay.
One of Bunige’s designers Tyson Green reiterated the benefit the beta has given them.
“Since the Beta, we’ve continued to tune and adjust the game. The way you earn experience has been adjusted up and down a bunch of times. Items have been added and removed. New features toggled. Although there’s no single monumental change, the sum of the tweaks leaves characters from the Beta Build in strange shape that would be confusing at best, broken at worst.”
The servers look capable, the gameplay looks sharp, and the hype is massive. It seems everything for Destiny is set and ready for its September 9th release.
Bungie and Activision’s efficiency with handling the development and marketing of Destiny will likely result in one of the smoothest and most successful major IP launches ever for consoles.