14 DAY TRIAL // Bungie has decided to share quite a few more details about the Fusion Rifle, the special weapon that's included in Destiny, its upcoming multiplayer-only first-person shooter, and how it behaves in the virtual world.
Destiny will deliver an online shooter experience in which players must protect the last city on Earth by venturing beyond its walls and to different planets in order to defeat AI-controlled aliens and engage against other human players.
In order to do so, they must use a variety of sci-fi weapons imagined by Bungie, and quite a few of them have already been showcased in various videos and screenshots.
In the latest roundup on its website, Bungie has gone a bit in-depth about the Fusion Rifle, courtesy of one of its weapon designers, Josh Hamrick.
The Fusion Rifle is a weapon that uses energy and needs to be charged up in order to fire, meaning you must anticipate enemy movement and charge it up beforehand in order to gain an advantage.
"The Fusion Rifle is an energy based weapon that must be charged up to fire. The charge speed varies per weapon, but in general it makes the weapon significantly slower to fire than a shotgun. If the user is adept, he can bypass this delay by pre-charging the weapon before acquiring line of sight to his target," he said.
The Fusion Rifle is a mid-range weapon, so it might not be suited for smaller maps or long-range situations in which players need scoped weapons like snipers.
"In terms of range, the Fusion Rifle is intended for medium range combat, significantly outpacing a standard shotgun. While it was not built to handle long range combat, users that can tame its recoil and have a little luck on their side may find themselves picking off targets outside the approved range."
Last but not least, the Fusion Rifle can be used rather effectively to clear groups of enemies, thanks to its unique pulse emitter, according to Hamrick.
"One last thing, because the Fusion Rifle uses a pulsing emitter in order to keep heat buildup to a minimum, it actually fires seven distinct beams in very quick succession. Because of this, users have had luck sweeping the weapon across multiple targets, eliminating all of them with a single fire event."
You can expect Bungie to share more details about the other weapons in Destiny in the near future.
The actual game will appear in September for PS3, PS4, Xbox One, and Xbox 360, and the beta might debut sometime in July.