Upon its release, Destiny received generally positive reviews, with praise for its gameplay, graphics, and for maintaining lineage from the Halo franchise, particularly in regard to its competitive experiences.

The Iron Banner is another PvP event that allows guardians to get high tier loot from playing these competitive multiplayer matches only available during exclusive windows of time and completing bounties.

A social space on Mercury was added with the House of Wolves expansion, but requires players to go undefeated in the Trials of Osiris Crucible mode in order to access it.

Each class has their own specific upgrades, perks, special abilities, and three sub-classes that allow the player to finely tune their individual characters to provide a different play style.

[30] In a universe where humans have spread out and colonized planets in the Solar System, an event known as "the Collapse" saw the mysterious dissolution of these colonies, the end of the Golden Age, and mankind teetering on the brink of extinction.

The only known survivors of the Collapse are those living on Earth, who were saved by "the Traveler", a white, spherical celestial body whose appearance centuries before had enabled humans to reach the stars.

The Guardian is then tasked to probe the nearby Cosmodrome, where humanity used to launch its forays into outer space, fending off Fallen enemies and eventually the Hive, who were thought to have been confined to the Moon.

The Guardian travels back to Venus, where they uncover the Archive, which reveals secrets about the Vex, including the location of a place called the Vault of Glass, and pathways across the galaxy.

After defeating Draksis, a Fallen Kell of the House of Winter,[d] the Guardian confronts the Vex Gate Lord, claims its head, and returns to the Queen, who tells them to take its eye to the Meridian Bay on Mars, where it can be used to enter the Black Garden.

The Cabal have been trying to break the encryption on the Vex Gate with only limited success, but they do control many of the places that the Guardian needs to visit on Mars thanks to their Exclusion Zone, which nobody had ever penetrated.

After defeating the three Sol Progeny, the heart is destroyed, returning the Guardian and the Garden itself to Mars and lifting the shroud of Darkness from the Traveler back on Earth, allowing it to begin healing.

While these powers do not extend to outside the Vault, its enigmatic nature has lured countless Guardians to their doom— the most infamous being the ill-fated fireteam of Kabr, the Legionless, which consisted of himself, Future War Cult Warlock Praedyth, and well-known hunter Pahanin.

Pahanin was the only member to make it out alive; Praedyth was forever lost in the dark corners of time, and Kabr drank the radiolaria of the Oracles, and was turned into a Vex.

[44][45] Details of this contract were revealed during the course of Activision's lawsuit against Jason West and Vincent Zampella, founders and former employees of Infinity Ward, including provisions for four Destiny games over the course of the ten-year deal.

"[49] Activision subsequently confirmed the $500 million figure, stating that marketing, up-front infrastructure costs, and investment in the game's engine were included, and could be amortized over the life of the IP.

[40][52] However, a "supercut" of the game's story and mission structure presented by Joseph Staten's writing team did not test well with Bungie upper management, led by Jason Jones.

This also involved rescoping the project to be more focused — areas such as the Hive fortress Dreadnaught, an Earth location called the European Dead Zone, and Osiris' temple on Mercury were cut — all would later return in future installments.

[63] The designers worked around "seven pillars", seven core principles which ensure that the game is accessible to both casual, novice players and experienced veterans of first-person shooters and MMOs.

Titans, which favor heavy weapons and melee attacks and are intended to be reminiscent of the classic "future soldier", were inspired by Bungie's own Master Chief from Halo, Stormtroopers from Star Wars, and other "space marines" from science fiction.

Nolan North replaced Dinklage for The Taken King and also re-recorded all of Ghost's lines from the original game, as Bungie wanted "to create a consistent storytelling experience from beginning to end".

[69][71][72] Early in Destiny's development, O'Donnell was contacted by Pete Parsons (current Chief Operating Officer of Bungie), and was asked to begin writing music for the game.

[95] These included the "Dust Palace" strike, the "Exodus Blue" Crucible map, two exotic weapons (the auto rifle "Monte Carlo" and hand cannon "Hawkmoon"), a rare gear set for each class (Manifold Seeker for Warlock, Vanir for Titan, and Argus for Hunter), and three ships ("Aurora Awake", "Crypt Hammer", and "Outrageous Fortune").

The Limited Edition included a SteelBook game case, the Arms & Armament Field Guide, postcards from the Golden Age, Antique Star Chart, and in-game content: an exclusive Ghost shell, ship, character emblem, and the Destiny Expansion Pass.

A new social space was added (Vestian Outpost), as well as two multiplayer modes: the Prison of Elders (a PvE arena) and Trials of Osiris (PvP game type).

It focuses on the Fallen race as they have breached the Wall that surrounds the Cosmodrome and have acquired the SIVA virus, a Golden Age nanotechnology characterized by self-replication and self-assembly.

[136] A two-week long Halloween-themed event began on October 26, 2015, called "Festival of the Lost" where players could complete quest lines to earn decorative masks for their Guardians.

[145] A new interface known as "Collections" allows players to track their exotic items, emblems, armor shaders, sparrows, ships, and emotes that they have found, as well as clues for how to obtain those they do not possess.

[153] Bungie halted pre-release reviews stating that they felt the game should be graded only when its social aspects were operative and populated with "thousands of gamers" in order to give a proper assessment.

[169] Danny O'Dwyer stated that Destiny's development surfaces some troubling ethical questions about the role of design in video game addiction, comparing it to slot machines and lab-pigeons in variable reward experiments.

[203] A full reveal trailer released on March 30, showing the three class Vanguards, Commander Zavala, Cayde-6, and Ikora Rey, rallying Guardians in the war-torn Tower.