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After the success of the first two BioShock games, the team at 2K Marin had several concepts for what could be the studio's next release. One of them sounds fascinating, because it would've been an attempt at a Destiny-like project several years before Bungie's own shared-world shooter came out.
On BlueSky, David Lindsey Pittman, a programmer on BioShock who worked at 2K Marin, spoke a little about what was known as Project Richmond. "Imagine: the team that made BioShock 2 made Destiny before Destiny existed," he says in the thread.
"But it was a BioShocky [magic-hand-and-gun-hand] game, and co-op, in an open world tundra environment," he describes. "Brightly colored geometric buildings, containing social experiments with subjects in a late '60s/early '70s suburban timeloop."
Imagine: the team that made BioShock 2 made Destiny before Destiny existed. But it was a BioShocky magic hand + gun hand game, and co-op, in an open world tundra environment. Brightly colored geometric buildings, containing social experiments with subjects in a late 60s/early 70s suburban timeloop.
This sounds incredibly appealing, and I'm not just saying that because I'm a sucker for time-travel and timeloops. "The player is in an early 70s suburban environment, then the sky cracks open and futuristic rangers arrive to rescue them," he adds.
This was one of four games that got to the prototyping stage, where it became known as "'The Experiment.'" He calls the game his "Everest," and mentions he actually kept his job at 2K Marin specifically in case this got the greenlight.
"I stuck around at [2K Marin] longer than I should've because I wanted to make that game so badly. It never happened," he says.
What could've been, huh? Bungie put out Destiny in 2014, creating a new standard for merging FPS and MMOs, and ultimately leading to Destiny 2's final update, which just came out roughly 12 years later.
2K Marin was closed sometime in 2013, and Pittman has since worked on the Neon Struct series, South Park: Snow Day!, and Schloss der Wölfe.
