Destiny developer Bungie originally tried to “push hard” away from sci-fi to distance Destiny from the Halo franchise.
Bungie Senior Writer Eric Osborne told IGN that originally their team wanted to label Destiny as "mythic science fiction," a "world that's rooted in science fiction but with more fantastical elements than we've ever had before, at least with Halo." Their concept artists purposely included more fantasy elements early on to find that separation in the world, but eventually settled on the “Star Wars” treatment that will front the game anticipated to release next year.
"Really, the artists were trying to push hard away from sci-fi because of the Halo legacy and history," Osborne said. "They were just thinking, ‘What can we do that's radically different after 10 years?' So there's actually some concept art that you can find online of a very fantasy-driven world of knights, swords and sorcery in a white city on a hill.
"That was very much pure fantasy, but the more they continued to work and the more their ideas formed over time, the more they realized that the lure of sci-fi was just something they loved and they were denying themselves that creative space," he added. "So they thought, ‘What if we just take these two things and smash them together?'"
Destiny currently has a 2014 launch window, including a spring beta for those who pre-order the game. It will release on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3.
Source: [IGN]
