Destiny is one of gaming's largest franchises. Anyone can instantly recognize the giant white ball known as the Traveler protecting The Last City of Earth. This MMOFPS hybrid is beloved by many for its wide amount of activities and beautiful visuals.
Any franchise this large has tons of details even hardcore fans will miss. Development woes, easter eggs, or smaller facts all apply to Destiny. Both Destiny titles might have gone through troubled development cycles, but plenty of community jokes and unique experiences have sprung from that. Ranging from giant frogs to silly voice lines, here are 10 facts about the Destiny franchise you likely didn't know.
10 Project Tiger
Bungie wanted to expand from creating Halo games for Microsoft, so the two reached a deal. Create two more Halo titles and they could go their own way. Thus, Halo 3: ODST was turned into a full title and Halo: Reach soon followed.
They were planning a project called "Project Tiger," named off of a certain piece of concept art with a tiger in it. Bungie originally planned to create a fantasy-focused title with giant frogs and large kingdoms, but the studio couldn't shake their science-fiction roots. Thus, they combined fantasy and sci-fi elements to create Destiny.
9 Teased In Halo 3: ODST
Since Bungie knew what their next project was going to be, they gave a subtle tease of their next project much earlier than expected. Destiny was teased as far back as Halo 3: ODST.
While exploring New Mombasa, players can find a certain poster that states "Destiny awaits" with an image of Earth and a white sphere orbiting it. Many thought it was a Moon too close to the planet, but fans of Destiny instantly recognize this object as the Traveler that saved humanity from The Darkness.
8 10 Year Plan
In order to create their next ambitious title, Bungie set out to find a publisher that would allow them to create a game as large as Destiny. They settled on Activision, in which both parties agreed that Destiny would be supported for 10 years.
This doesn't mean that only the first Destiny would be updated for 10 years, however. Instead, this meant that both parties would invest in creating main entries every other year with major expansions called "comet" DLCs in between. Of course, this didn't pan out since we are still on Destiny 2 on not Destiny 3 or 4.
7 That Wizard Came From The Moon
Destiny went through many iterations during its development, but one funny change involves a line of dialogue your Ghost said in the game's alpha.
In one level on Earth in Destiny's alpha, you were tasked to slay a Hive Wizard. On killing them, your Ghost would state "That Wizard came from the Moon!" This horrible line of dialogue was made fun off by the community and Bungie themselves, going as far as to make merchandise with the silly phrase.
6 Music Of The Spheres
One of Destiny's greatest strengths is its music. Both Destiny and Destiny 2 have some of gaming's best scores you can ever listen to. Some of the original Destiny's music was missing for years, however.
Titled Music Of The Spheres, this album contained a suite of music that Martin O'Donnell, Michael Salvatori, and Paul McCartney composed. Snippets of it are played in the game, but many thought the full tracks were lost to time since they were completely missing from Destiny's OST. Legal disputes between Martin O'Donnell and Activision prevented it from being released for ages. Thankfully, the dispute was resolved and Bungie released the soundtrack as a collector's vinyl. You can listen to it here.
5 Made Over $500 Million On Launch
Did you know that Destiny's budget during its 10-year plan was half a billion dollars? Did you also know that Bungie made all of that back during Destiny's launch?
It only took a single day for Destiny to match its insane budget, making it the best selling new IP of all time. With how the game was advertised, it's easy to see why. No games were promising MMO features in an FPS title that is as polished as Bungie's Halo games. Critics were lukewarm about the game at launch, but the game continued to rake in absurd amounts of income for Bungie and Activision.
4 Ghost Voice Actor Change
Fans who started Destiny from The Taken King expansion or beyond will associate Nolan North's voice with their floating companion. Those who played the game at launch will remember this wasn't always the case.
During Destiny's first year, your Ghost was voiced by none other than Peter Dinklage. You can watch Destiny's pre-release footage or year 1 footage to see this for yourself. Bungie stated that the Ghost needed to be revoiced for The Taken King because Peter Dinklage wasn't available, but many fans speculate either he was too expensive to keep on-board or the renowned actor was frustrated with Destiny's rough development.
3 Vicarious Visions And High Moon Studios
Many fans associate the best aspects of Destiny and Destiny 2 as Bungie's work. While this is mostly true, certain aspects of Destiny and much of Destiny 2 was created with the help of Activision's support studios.
High Moon Studios helped with Destiny and Destiny 2's development, and Vicarious Visions helped develop the PC port for Destiny 2 along with expansion content. If you loved the "Warmind" expansion, Tangled Shore, Baron fights, or Season of Opulence, it is mostly thanks to these studios that those pieces of content exist for Destiny 2.
2 Reboot
Games as ambitious as the Destiny franchise never get finished without development hurdles. No one could have guessed just how many issues plagued Destiny's development, though.
Much of the original Destiny was overhauled or completely cut from the game a year before it released. The main campaign was cut into pieces and Frankensteined back together as a push to make the game more open. Much of the game's criticisms are a result of this reboot. Destiny 2 also had a reboot a year before it released as well but details on what changed are sparse. It is likely much of Destiny 2's reboot focused on streamlining the game so more players could get into it. This, of course, alienated fans until the fantastic Forsaken expansion released and fixed most of that game's issues.
1 Cut Content
While the reboot for both Destiny titles seems bad enough, these reboots also resulted in tons of cut content for the original Destiny.
Mercury, Europa, the European Dead Zone, and Saturn's Dreadnaught were all meant to be part of the original Destiny. The Dreadnaught was released in The Taken King as a fan-favorite, while Mercury and the EDZ were released in Destiny 2. Many fans speculate that the missing Darkness faction teased in concept art and Europa will debut in Destiny 3. Outside of planets, pilotable space ships, sparrow racing, and even trading were either implied or referenced before launch. Only sparrow racing entered the game, although that was a temporary event for the original Destiny.