Destiny - Concept art analysis

A beautiful world

We visited Bungie Studios earlier this week to find out the first confirmed details on Destiny, the studio's first game not titled Halo in over a decade. You'll want to go check out everything we know about Destiny and watch us reacting to the announcement, but there's a lot that Bungie still hasn't said.

Namely, not much has been shown in the way of actual gameplay footage. In engine, we saw a sprawling vista here, and a character model there, but right now we're mostly going on Destiny's concept art. That's why we've decided to take a closer look at the beautiful art from Bungie's design team and pull a few more details about the characters and world of the upcoming, open-world shooter.

The Traveler's Rest

At the end of mankind's Golden Age, in which human civilization spanned the entire solar system, Earth and the other human settlements were attacked by an unknown enemy. The Human race was almost entirely stamped out of existence. But the Traveler intervened, sacrificing himself to save earth. He left the sphere floating above the surface, marking the location where the remaining humans would build a city. That's what you're looking at here.

This is the starting point of your adventure as a Guardian of The City. From the look of this image, the city appears to be massive and surrounded by several protective walls. If the Traveler's Sphere can be seen from orbit, the city could be a hundred miles in diameter. That could turn into a lot of travel time.

Cassini Derelict

We don't know what a Cassini is yet, but these massive heaps of scrap metal float among the rings of Saturn. That is pretty much the only thing we are sure about. Bungie also mentioned that players will be able to explore the ancient wreckage, which could mean you get out of your spaceship and float around Dead Space-style or there might be some way of salvaging treasure from the derelict fleets while inside your ship. Either way, we can't wait to see more.

Garden

Many of the environments shown from Destiny were relatively familiar. We all can imagine what the surface of Mars looks like, and we've all run through a war-torn, post-apocalyptic Earth in one game or another. But then, Bungie introduced some locations that were completely alien, like the garden above. This could possibly be ruins on Earth that have been reclaimed by nature, or a serene location on some other planet. Since Earth was said to have been almost entirely destroyed, we're guessing it's the latter. Unless, of course, that destruction happened so long ago that Nature has begun to recover. One thing's for sure, it's probably the most beautiful maze we've ever seen.

Citadel

This mass of floating rectangles and lightning bolts is one of the enemy strongholds players can raid, usually resulting in getting a few pieces of unique gear. In the image we can see some of the time-traveling robots called the Vex in the background defending their base against a fireteam of Guardians. If you look close, there appear to be two types of enemies. There's the standard, cone-headed grunts and a larger, more threatening robot further back in the group.

One thing to note about the player characters in the front is both Guardians are carrying two primary weapons. They are both holding assault rifles, with another large rifle on their backs--emulating the two weapon rule of the Halo games.

Hellmouth

Another enemy base located on Earth's moon. The Hellmouth is another example of the striking visual design of the environments. It looks to drop deep into the moon's surface and seems to have some activity with all that molten lava gushing out of the walls. We don't know much else about this location, but we can't wait to explore this bottomless pit.

Ocean of Storms

At first glance you might think that this is just another look at the surface of the moon. But giant floating boulders generally aren't a characteristic of the our moon's terrain and there aren't any identifiable continents on the blue planet in the background. Maybe we're not looking at the earth and moon at all. Could this be an asteroid passing by an unknown planet that ancient humans decided to build a space station on? Perhaps Destiny extends outside our solar system. Your guess is as good as ours.

Guardians

These are the three revealed character classes: the Hunter, the Warlock, and the Vanguard (from left to right). You'll notice that each class has very different looking armor and from what they're wearing we can make a few assumptions on the part they'll play in combat.

The Hunter on the left is wearing lighter armor which may make her more agile or faster on her feet. She is also wearing a cloak, which generally indicates that the Hunter will be more of a stealth-type character which is also evidenced by the silencer on her rifle. We already know that the Warlock will have access to supernatural abilities, but his flowing cloak definitely screams spellcaster. In this concept, the Warlock is carrying a short rifle, possibly a close-ranged SMG. Even more, there is a small, spherical drone of some type floating over the right shoulder. Some kind of pet perhaps? Finally, the Vanguard is obviously wearing the heaviest armor set and toting a significantly larger rifle than the other two classes. Judging by the size of the gun and the monstrous clip, he's most likely carrying a light machine gun.

Fireteam

This action-packed concept most notably highlights the three-man team co-op concept, as well as the magic abilities of the Warlock on the far right. Though we don't know much about the three-eyed insectoid enemies the heroes are combating, further support for the Hunter being a stealth class can be seen in the camouflage cloak and silenced, carbine-like rifle. The Hunter also looks to be wearing a gas mask, which may suggest that he might use gas or poison-based attacks.

Dark patrol

Here is an up-close look at a female Hunter on the left carrying a sniper rifle. The long-range weapon looks to have multiple attachments, including a sight, bipod stand, and a Barret .50 cal-style compensator at the end of the barrel, all possible permutations of weapon customization.

The enemies in the background include the heavily armored war-rhinos called the Cabal and the four armed spider pirates called The Fallen. This is the first indication that the separate enemy factions will work together, suggesting the two groups have formed some sort of human-eradicating alliance, or simply share the same leader.

Cabal Exclusion Zone

This is another fortified enemy location players will be able to raid. Located in the red deserts of Mars, the massive, Sandcrawler-shaped buildings seem to be projecting some sort of energy shield into the sky. Also, in the bottom right corner of the image, you can see what looks like a Vanguard and Hunter getting ready to enter the Cabal compound.

The Fallen

Here is a close look at a squad of the spider-like Fallen. This image makes it difficult to see their two additional arms, but you can see a glimpse of their weapons and technology. Their giant, rusted-out walking tank suggests that battles in Destiny won't just be simple foot-soldier skirmishes, but will involve taking down armored behemoths. You'll also notice that The Fallen's weapons look unique to their race, though they also have a floating spherical drone like the Warlock class.

This also shows another example of environment and weather varieties that will be in Destiny. In addition to changing weather, a dynamic day-night cycle can alter the environment.

Vex

This image shows another look at the Vex. But more interesting than the actual characters in the image is the environment they are in. The orange ocean the robots are trudging through doesn't seem to be a location on Earth--or at least, any Earth we know. Bungie mentioned that players would be able to explore the acid lake of Venus, so maybe that is what we're looking at.

Pike bike

Vehicles appear to play a large part in Destiny, and here is our first glimpse at what the personal mounts look like. This image shows a Vanguard character riding a vehicle called a Pike. The hover bike is armed with forward facing cannons and looks like it's going pretty fast. Bungie described the Pike as being able to strafe around its targets, so perhaps it will control like the Covenant's Ghosts in Halo.

It's unclear how these vehicles will be acquired in game, but Bungie mentioned a player had stolen one when describing a player-to-player interaction in a public area.

Did we miss anything?

Those are all of the details we could pull out of the concept art. Did you notice anything you think we missed? Have any theories of your own? Let us know in the comments below.

For more information on Destiny, be sure to check out our article Destiny - All the information on Bungie's next shooter and our Radar Reacts video on Destiny.