14 DAY TRIAL // Bungie has gone a bit more in-depth about the reason it has decided not to feature cross-platform play in its upcoming Destiny first-person shooter, saying that it's mostly about actual and perceived advantages for players.
Destiny launches this September across the PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One platforms. From the beginning of the game's life, rumors about a shared experience across platforms appeared, but Bungie shot them down saying that fans shouldn't expect cross-platform play.
This means that PS4 owners will play with other PS4 users and so on.
According to Bungie's Roger Wolfson, who talked with DigitalTrends, this lack of cross-platform connection is due to the different advantages and disadvantages that could appear or what players might think in the game.
"I’ll speak for the hypothetical player. I have a disadvantage sniping across the map because [my opponent with a new-gen console] is only two pixels on my screen and I’m four pixels on his. You see that in the world of PC gaming, where people are always racing to the best video card to give themselves the advantage," he explained.
"Regardless of where the reality is, there’s definitely a perception among gamers that better hardware means you have an advantage. We don’t want to have to enter that fray, so to create the best, most level playing field, both actually and perceptually, we separated it by platform."
While the excuse isn't that great, both Microsoft and Sony have been notorious in not allowing their customers to interact with other platforms, like with Borderlands.
Still, Wolfson emphasizes that there won't be that many differences between the last-gen and the current-gen versions of Destiny. The loading times, the fluid gameplay, and the open world is the same across all platforms, according to him.
"I’ve been playing some on the Xbox 360 as well as the PS4 [at home] as we head into the beta window, and I’ve been really pleased at how I can almost forget that I’m playing on a last-gen console. There’s really no difference at all in loading, the action game is as fluid and as action-packed, there are as many combatants on the last-gen, [and] the loading times are equivalent."
Destiny's beta is currently live on the PS4 and PS3 and will start on the Xbox One and Xbox 360 platforms next week.
The final game launches on September 9 and quite a lot of last-gen and current-gen console owners are eagerly awaiting its debut.