It’s no secret that Bungie wants to hit a home run with Destiny this year, following in the footsteps of Respawn Entertainment and its Titanfall. As such, the company aims to make the best of Destiny’s beta stage, making it the biggest beta in the company’s history to date. Bungie won’t be opening the entire world of Destiny during the beta phase, but it will certainly providing enough, both for players to get a taste (and hopefully leave them begging for more) and to ensure the company receives enough comprehensive feedback to polish the game to desired levels.
“Ever served Bungie as a beta tester? This will be the biggest proving grounds we’ve ever opened up to you before we were go for final launch.” Community Manager David Dague announced. The beta won’t be limited by an extensive NDA either. Players will be able to freely stream their experiences while exploring Destiny, without any restrictions. In the meantime, Bungie’s development team is smack in the middle of on-going bug-hunting and testing, polishing the game at a rapid pace. And this doesn’t mean just Bungie’s QA team, either. Everyone involved with the development is also involved in the game’s testing, according to Network Tester Jason Pate. “The goal of the bug bash is to get producers, engineers, designers, and testers together. They’re battling the build, hammering over a set group of areas – trying to get to those bugs that we may have missed” he explains.
The exact magnitude of Destiny’s beta is not yet known, but we expect it to be huge, based on all indications. Destiny is set for release on multiple platforms, more specifically the Xbox 360, Xbox One, PS3, PS4 and PC, on the 9th of September 2014. The beta will start sometime during the middle of summer, most likely in mid-July. Pre-ordering the game is obviously the most important first step in ensuring access to Destiny’s beta. It seems the first platform to start the testing phase will be Sony’s Playstation, which is somewhat surprising, given the long history of collaboration between Microsoft’s Xbox and Bungie (Halo, anyone?). Keep tuned as we’ll surely be bringing more insight about Destiny and its beta stage as things are announced.