Bungie's latest action shooter, Destiny, was released last month to critical acclaim, but will the console title come out for the PC in March of next year as rumored?
Destiny is a futuristic online first-person shooter developed by Halo creator Bungie and published by Activision. The game takes place in a sci-fi open-world setting that boasts an unpredictably "alive" universe where artificial intelligence and other online players can combine to make a unique experience.
When the game launched on September 9th, 2014, it was, and still is, only available for the Xbox One, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PlayStation 4 consoles. This led to a bit of animosity from the PC gaming crowd, but Bungie insisted that the game wasn't coming to the PC any time soon, if ever.
Gaming news site Polygon reached out to Activision's CEO of Publsihing, Erik Hirshberg, for a few words on the hot topic.
"It is [a good fit], and it's something we're talking about and looking at very carefully, and obviously it makes a lot of sense with the genre and the type of game it is," he mentioned during E3 this year. "You know, developing on PC is a different animal than developing for consoles and so we just want to make sure that we're putting one foot in front of the other and getting it right, and that it's of the highest possible quality. But obviously I see the same things about the natural fit."
An alledgedly mistaken leak on popular PC download service Steam hinted at a PC release in March of 2015, but that date has never been confirmed by Activision or Bungie.
With Destiny's estimated $500 million budget, the publisher wants to make sure that it's being efficient with its product release. According to Hirshberg, that's just not happening for the PC market.
"It's great to see the next gen hardware is off to such a strong start and both the Xbox One and PS4 are well ahead of where their predecessors were at this point ... but if you just woke up today and looked at where people are gaming, the majority of people are still on the legacy hardware."
None of this rules out a PC port completely, but it may just wait until the honeymoon stage is over. Will that happen as early as March of next year? We'll just have to wait and see.
In the meantime, the game is enjoying a stable launch and generally positive reception. The latest content patch, rolling out this Tuesday, will reduce the effectiveness of the Auto Rifle and boost the Scout's rifle in the process. The infamous loot cave will be closed down for good, and a few exploits and bugs will be fixed.
A recent blog post from the developer mentions a larger upcoming update that will "address under-performing Exotics and overall class balance."
