Written by Mike Carey, the writer of the X-Men: Legacy comic book series,[2] it was published and released by Activision for the Nintendo DS, PlayStation 3, Wii, and Xbox 360 consoles.

[3] Along with many other games published by Activision that had used a Marvel license, X-Men: Destiny was de-listed and subsequently removed from all digital storefronts on January 1, 2014.

The player chooses from one of three mutant characters who have been created for the game: Aimi Yoshida, Adrian Luca or Grant Alexander (voiced by Jamie Chung, Scott Porter and Milo Ventimiglia respectively).

[14] The game begins at a peace rally in memory of the deceased Professor X, seen through the Mutant Response Division's Chief Luis Reyes.

Things quickly turn when the rally is attacked by an anti-mutant extremist group called the Purifiers, who are kidnapping mutants, not killing them as they usually do.

Depending on the player's choice between the X-Men or the Brotherhood of Mutants, they go to either Cyclops or Mystique with the new-found information and are tasked with finding Pixie and Caliban.

With the aid of Forge, the player character finds Caliban and realizes that Hodge's ally is Bastion, the robot who killed Professor X before being destroyed by Magneto.

Anonymous sources claiming to be former employees have said that the development team was split between 'XMD and Eternal Darkness 2, with management indifferent toward X-Men.

[15] Denis Dyack, the founder of Silicon Knights, has responded, stating that the project budget was drastically reduced due to Marvel's acquisition by Disney.

[citation needed] To remedy this, Silicon Knights put $2 million of their own money into the project, which stunned Activision and had said on the record that it was not a good business move.

For example, when he pointed out that the boss fight with the Juggernaut could only be beaten using psychic powers instead of health depletion to zero as he is indestructible, as per the character's lore, his superiors told him not to focus on "unimportant details."

[21][25] Joystiq (now a part of Engadget) criticized the sluggish gameplay and short story, stating the game feels unfinished and gave the Xbox 360 version 1.5 stars out of 5, ending the review with, "...at least you can quickly move onto something more pleasurable, like...burying a beloved family pet".