We're entering a new era of Destiny 2. Guardians from far and wide are joining the fight, and they're bringing mice and keyboards with them. The game looks ridiculously good on PC - like 'claw out your own eyes' amazing - and our reviewer was thrilled by what he saw. But this is more than just a pretty port.
PC gamers have different priorities, and the majority prefer to play with mouse and keyboard. With Destiny 2, they're not only late to the series as a whole - they're behind the console players by about a month. We spoke to the Destiny 2 development team at Bungie about the journey to PC; you can read the full feature here, but here are four facts you absolutely must know.
The original plan was to ship the same day as consoles
"We really wanted to ship day and date, PC as a first-class citizen was a pillar for us," says David Shaw, PC Project Lead. "Through the development process, we came to the realization that to do it right, and to really deliver the game that PC players want and deserve, we needed that extra window of time to really land it properly. Now that the [game is out], I can tell you that that was absolutely the right call, and the game that players are going to get is that much better for it."
Don't give up on the idea of switching between console and PC versions at will and keeping all your progress just yet - the development team is listening
"I think there’s two things the community talks about; cross-play and cross-save," says Shaw. "We honestly hear more calls for cross-save, and we think that’s an interesting thing. We’d like to be able to do that too, but we don’t have anything to announce relative to that."
Notice that not having anything to announce isn't the same as saying no, especially as the subject of cross-saves came up again. Shaw said, "it sounds cool, we’d like to be able to do that."
Behind the scenes, the PC version has been in production, in one way or another, for years
"Technically the PC project started years ago because of a lot of our technology," explains Shaw. "We tend to think far ahead... To give an example, our artwork has been HDR-capable for years - it’s just HDR didn’t exist yet in a format that was available to consumers."
He goes on to explain that even though they've been working on it, this is the first time the team's been able to actually deliver. "[People might say] 'Well, why didn’t you give us this two or three years ago?' Well, we couldn’t give you this two or three years ago, that’s why... There’s no perfect answer, but this is the real answer, is that we just weren’t going to do it half-assed."
There will be a little delay while the content syncs up, just to give PC players a chance to get comfortable
"[The delay is] really about [having] this period of time where the raid and the Trials will unlock and give people an appropriate amount of time to get ready for those activities," says Thomas Gawrys, the PC engineering lead at Vicarious Visions. (The studio was integral to bringing Destiny 2 to PC). "After that, it’ll be just completely in-sync with console, everything will drop at the same time - DLCs, events, seasons, and all that stuff will all come in at the same time."
