Destiny dev reveals Raid details
UPDATE: Planet View app unlocks exclusive in-game emblem.
UPDATE: Intrepid fans have discovered the just-released Destiny Planet View website not only allows you to explore the game's worlds in a Google View kind of way, but doing so in a thorough fashion will earn you an exclusive emblem - The Sign of the Finite - for use in the full game. To earn it, you just need to explore Venus, Mars and the moon, clicking on all the icons. Alternatively, just turn to Reddit, where someone has already found the code to unlock the emblem, because of course they have.
Destiny's mysterious multiplayer Raids - the game's six-player missions that you can only attempt with your friends - will be tough to beat but offer exclusive rewards, Bungie has detailed.
During testing earlier this year, Bungie invited four six-player teams to play a Raid for two days on its normal difficulty mode.
Two of the teams made it to the Raid's final encounter, while another team made it there after being skipped through an earlier tough stage. The final team opted out entirely and went back to playing other modes.
After this, Bungie "made a bunch of tuning changes", but still doesn't expect the mode to be easy.
"I've gotten a handful of Bungie groups through the Raid on Normal, and you guys (the playerbase) are inevitably better at the game, smarter tacticians, and more clever than we are," designer Luke Smith wrote in a recent blog post.
A Raid's Hard mode is unlocked when you complete a Raid on normal. This will be even more challenging, and demand "execution", Smith continued.
"In addition to deadlier combatants, tighter tuning windows for encounter mechanics and a handful of targeted differences, Hard mode encounters leverage an even harsher death penalty than the Normal modes."
As previously detailed, your progress through a Raid will be saved for you to tackle on several attempts. And the rewards will be worth it - you'll unlock Legendary versions of each Destiny weapon type, specific to each Raid.
Your progress will be kept until each Tuesday, when the game will see a global Weekly Reset. You will be able to tackle a Raid more than once during each week, but only gain the rewards once.
In other news, Bungie has launched a Destiny Planet View tool - think Google StreetView for a portion of Destiny's levels. You can view glimpses of the game's Moon, Mars and Venus maps and hear snippets of lore about the areas on offer.
