A few years ago, Bungie announced that the Chinese gaming giant, NetEase, had given them a significant amount of money, reported to be more than $100 million, to take the Destiny franchise in new directions.
More than six years after that initial announcement, we now have a first look at what that partnership has resulted in. It’s a new mobile game called Destiny Rising, and it is being developed and published entirely by NetEase, with Bungie merely providing the license to the franchise and a whole lot of suggestions. Here’s the first trailer.
There’s a lot to unpack in this announcement. My first thought was, Why did it take six years to show this project to the public? Sure, a lot has happened in the background since the partnership announcement. Bungie split with Activision, operated Destiny independently for a while, then got sold to Sony, and is now almost on the verge of losing its independence entirely. But if there’s one thing we know about mobile game development, it’s that they are supposed to be faster to make, right? That’s a huge part of the appeal of mobile games – they are cheaper to produce and bring in more money than PC/Console projects.
It may be a while before we learn about why it took NetEase so long to announce Destiny Rising, but I guess the far more interesting thing to focus on is the upcoming closed alpha, which begins in November, in the US and Canada. It’s a bit surprising that NetEase isn’t including its home country in the test, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a separate announcement for China. I’m a bit bummed that India isn’t part of the first test, but on second thought, I don’t really mind.
I’m currently taking a break from Destiny 2. I haven’t bought the annual upgrade of the current expansion, meaning I don’t have access to the latest episodic content, which started last week. Naturally, I’m not too keen about starting a whole new grind with a mobile game. If anything, I’m just curious to see how the Destiny experience will translate to mobile. That’s why I’m hoping the upcoming alpha test isn’t restricted by an NDA, and that streamers can show off the gameplay.
A lot of the initial feedback to the trailer revolves around regular fans joking (or not?) that Destiny 2 could use some of the features shown in the mobile game’s trailer, such as new supers, weapons and a flexible class system that doesn’t restrict the player to a certain class. Comments also expressed concern about the monetisation system, and for good reason.
The last big PC/Console franchise that NetEase converted into a mobile game was Diablo Immortal. That went on to become one of the most infamous mobile game releases in recent times, with several predatory monetisation practices in place. It’s only fair to assume that Destiny Rising will have something similar in place, since NetEase has to recover the $100 million (and more) it has invested in this franchise.
It’s probably too early to speculate, so let’s just wait for the alpha to begin or until we get more details. For more details about the game, and to pre-register for the alpha, you can visit the official website.