Grandfather tells heartbreaking story of how Destiny saved his life

Video games have a way of offering an escape whether it be for people looking to kill time after work or get their mind off a dark time in their life. For this man, it's been a way to help live a happier life, to escape into a world filled with magic and mystery.

When looking for someone to complete a raid with, Twitch streamer Lucent_Beam found someone who had yet to complete one despite having over 600 hours invested into the game. He didn't really have any experience with the online community as he just recently bought a headset to talk to other people. He wasn't your typical year 3 Destiny player, but he still loved the game!

During the stream, the retired man opened up to lucent_beam where he talked about how the sci-fi shooter has been helping him handle a tough time in his life.

“This game actually kinda saved my life,” he said. “My wife actually passed away Christmas 2014…all my family is already passed away. My son passed away nine months ago. This game keeps my mind—I’m retired, so—this game keeps my mind pretty sharp. I feel like I live here. I have lucid dreams about living here. And those are really exciting. It’s so exciting. Most exciting time of my life, being in here.”

Players in the Destiny community were so touched by his story, they banded together to help fund a trip for the man to go to the Destiny convention, GuardianCon.

It's truly great to see how something meant simply for entertainment is also used as a coping method for people all over the world. It's likely players will switch over to the sequel which has been confirmed to release later in 2017.

Destiny is out now on Xbox One, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PlayStation 4.

[Kotaku]