How Destiny builds on inspiration from Borderlands

Destiny, Halo creator Bungie's upcoming connected, open world sci-fi shooter, is inspired by games like Gearbox's Borderlands franchise and Ubisoft's open world Far Cry series, creative lead Joe Staten told Edge Online.

Staten said that the development team "would be idiots" if they didn't look at "an awesome game like Borderlands and ask, 'What are they doing well and how can we try to hit that same ball?'"

However, Bungie's goal isn't to simply ape mechanics of other co-op shooters, but to build upon them and offer new experiences inspired by other games.

"When we look at a game like that, we look at the things they're doing well and also at opportunities they might have missed that we can capitalize on," Staten said. "You can party up with a group of people and then go around with that group, but never in Borderlands are you going to collide with a group of other people doing it, too. We don't do that just once or twice in the game, we do that all the time, everywhere. You see other people on the horizon, hear gunfire over a hill and see space magic flying behind some trees, and you know ... there are other people out here, that [changes everything]. Borderlands right now is: 'I'm going to walk into that space and we're going to clear them out and keep going.' And frankly that's not just Borderlands, that's any co-op shooter."

For more on the thinking and iteration behind Destiny's co-op and loot systems, as well as the story behind the E3 2013 demo, be sure to check out Polygon's interview with Bungie president Harold Ryan.