Customizable face, hair style, and tattoos

This is just a taste of the information from the latest Game Informer article. The hype levels are reaching maximum for me.

* Vex and Cabal will fight each other in game
* Multiple character slots
* Ability to rebuild character without losing previous progress
* Exos were built during golden age but have no memory of the time
* Customizable face, hair style, and tattoos
* “If you want to think about it in MMO terms, all of our classes are damage-per-second characters. Every character is capable of going into a situation and solving it. They may do it in different ways. The class is really more of an emotional archetype.” - Tyson Green
* In addition to classes there will be focuses that function kind of like a sub-class. And that will be where your abilities come from.
* Many different grenade types including homing and proximity.
* If you don’t like your focus you can change it at any time.
* Fallen ships appear like “rusted futuristic submarines”
* Types of Cabal: Legionnaires, Centurions, Gladiators, and Psions
* Cabal bleed oil
* Types of Vex: Goblins, Hobgoblins, Minotaurs, Hydras, and Harpies
* Types of Hive: Thralls, Troopers, Knights, Wizards, and Ogres
* Glimmer IS currency, a rare energy-based substance from the Golden Age
* There is a game map
* Competitive matches are in the world as activities.
* There will be a checkpoint system
* Factions are for competitive multiplayer, you fight in support of a faction
* Players can only wield one exotic weapon and one exotic piece of armor at a time, but you can carry as many as you want with you

light match, run away.

I would like to purchase a physical copy of this issue. Does anyone know where I can do that? I looked online but only saw stuff about getting the year-long digital subscription.

Xenos, thanks for the summary. My eyes kept bugging out. Lots of stuff I/other suspected ending up being confirmed.

It will be cool to see how the checkpoint system works with such large playspaces. And I wonder if you just want to play MP, will there still be "playlists" as such or will you have to travel in between games. Maybe players will vote on the map/arena and then everyone is flown in and airdropped by their personal ship.

My level of excitement for this game is stupid high, but I'm a little disappointed that there's no space/aerial combat implied in this article.

A bit more info, quoted from Destiny reddit user USplendid

• The Tower: Our home base where we go back between missions. There are vendors, you can turn in quest items, we can interact with other players in open plazas, and it also has class focused areas (specific designated areas) for hunters, warlocks, and titans. (Described as Earth's Camelot)
  
• Old Russia: One of the first places we visit for our missions (as seen in the demo). It's the ruins of the cosmodrome (modeled after Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan). It was an important place during the Golden Age for outer space exploration, hence all the colony ships left over unlaunched) Fallen hideout.
  
• Moon: Former human colony of interconnected bases. Since it's fall, the Hive have infested building underground tunnels and the Hellmouth. Surface of the moon is now fractured.
  
• Venus: Used to be a scientific research facility during the Golden Age. Now the Venusian ocean is rising on the decaying buildings. Now there lies a tower called the Vex Citadel that they defend heavily.
  
• Mars: Used to be a heavily populated metropolis, but now is buried in the red sands of Mars. Both the cabal and vex stake claim, causing a dispute between them. Turf war.
  
• Race and gender is cosmetic: Your face will be visible in shared, non-combat spaces where you roam w/o a helmet. You can therefore customize your face, hair style, and tattoos are mentioned.
  
• Humans trying to rebuild the world
  
• Awoken (presumably human) survived the Collapse "but were forever changed"
  
• Exo are self-aware machines developed during the Golden Age and rebooted with their memories wiped (Unknown original purpose).
  
• Choosing a class sets a tone by establishing style of abilities: What really determines how you play is how you develop your "focus". Each class (Hunter, Warlock, and Titan) have a class-specific focus.
  
• "Focuses" are the primary way we level and improve characters. Each focus advances from level 1 - 20. Within each focus their are tiers for different abilities (passive bonuses, weapon specialty bonuses, grenade types, unique movements like double jump and teleport, melee bonuses).
  
• Each focus has a "super ability" associated with it that can also be upgraded.
  
• We can switch between focuses: i.e. pick a more competitive focus for pvp and the switch to a more support focus for cooperative.
  
• Warlocks: start with a focus called Circle of Night - damage dealing but little protections and the super ability in the nova bomb. Heart of Fusion - a support build that's super ability is called Radiance and call revive and buff allies.
  
• Titans: start with a close-quarters focus that has Fist of Havoc. In later upgrades the shockwave can be amplified, adding electric damage over time that remains in place.
  
• Hunters: Bounty-Hunter archetype. Stealthiness. You start off with a gunslinger Focus. Special ability is the "Golden Gun" one-shot-kill and the special movement is teleport.
  
• There are multiple character slots. So you can try out and play in other roles without having to delete your current character or screw up progression.
  
• Guns are not class-specific (weapon perks are dependent on the focus and abilities you invest in).
  
• Armor, weapons, and focuses are meant to be synergistic. The Focus you choose should be accented with the appropriate weapons and armor to maximize effectiveness... but that's up to the player.
  
• Primary, Secondary, and Heavy weapons use three different color-coded ammo types.
  
• Armor is class-specific.
  
• Everyone gets a ghost, as well as a customize-able personal vehicle (Sparrow) to travel in open-world environments, and a space ship that will be visible to people when you drop in and out of activities.
  
• THE FALLEN: Space pirates descended from a once honorable species from different noble houses. Now they are nomadic and aggressive. They originate from deep space and they have distinct sigils from the house they belong to. Souls burst from their heads when you shoot them.
  
• THE CABAL: Industrial, militaristic, and warmongering expansionists. The Rome of Space.
  
• Legionnaires: typical front line grunts that charge and shoot
  
• Centurions: more mobile and have jet packs
  
• Gladiators: huge and strong with gattling guns
  
• Psions: smaller Cabals that use their mind to attack and pilot giant cabal ships. (Ooze black oily liquid when killed)
  
• THE VEX: Mentioned to be possibly from another time and space, they got here using warp gates. Robotic bodies with remnants of organics, some are humanoid while others more animalistic. Head shots don't hurt them as much as focusing on their abdominal power cores which oozes glowing liquid.
  
• Goblins: harass and overwhelm
  
• Hobgoblins: larger and have tails
  
• Minatours: even larger
  
• Hydras: three headed segmented machines that float in air and attack via turrets attached to each segment
  
• Harpies: smaller fly rapidly and occasionally open up before they fire
  
• THE HIVE: Ancient race that kept themselves alive in sarcophagus like ships. They typically burrow into a planet regardless of the damage it may cause and burrow tunnels and dungeon like caverns. Burst into dust and embers when you kill them.
  
• Thralls: mobs without weapons or armor
  
• Troopers: bulk of combat
  
• Knights: wield enormous cleavers
  
• Wizards: Fly overhead and unleash spells
  
• Ogres: mutant beasts, shoot energy from their head
  
• Back to discussing gameplay...
  
• Destiny has all players together in one massive world and links you with smaller groups at appropriate locations and times.
  
• When entering a public place a designated number of players (solo/fireteams/etc..) will be allowed to take on the challenge (as to not allow a swarming mass of guardians during engagements). So essentially entering a public place puts you in a unique server (shard) where others can join that specific battle.
  
• When dispatching enemies, your XP counter ticks up and all equipped weapons, armor, and skills increase.
  
• Some enemies you come across will be beyond your skill/armor/weapon level. Be best to move on and come back later.
  
• You call on you personal vehicle to traverse land quicker with the push of a button.
  
• Side missions can pop up anywhere, even during another mission. You can choose to take them or not (these missions could range from escorting a VIP to safety or killing a certain amount of enemy types).
  
• Melee attacks are different for each Focus.
  
• The left bumper throws out a grenade that is unique to your Focus (it has a cool-down).
  
• Pressing the jump button twice executes your focus' special movement (glide, double jump, teleport)
  
• Pressing both left+right bumper activates the super ability.
  
• Every class and focus has unique grenades, supers, bonuses, and upgrades for visual style and effect.
  
• You can take some enemy vehicles. However you cannot keep them.
  
• Glimmer is dropped by enemies and is the currency in Destiny. It is a rare, energy-based substance left over from the Golden Age.
  
• You can pull up an in-game map that targets locations with icons for story missions, coop strikes, competitive matches, and more... your ships will give you instant access to these locations.
  
• Strikes are cooperative missions that are relatively quick and team you up with others. Since strikes send you directly to locations you can choose to explore them after the strike is over.
  
• Raids are highly challenging cooperative story missions that are undertaken by organized groups against "insurmountable odds".
  
• Competitive matchmaking occurs between factions, in which factions hire you to compete against the guardians of other factions. The different factions are revealed to be integral in the development of and defense of the city. (Include capturing zones, death matches)
  
• You begin pvp without any heavy ammo.
  
• There is a lot of verticality (high ledges, buildings, etc...) that can be reached by movement specials by each class.
  
• Shifting environmental features can be used to our advantage or determent (position of the suns glare, changing mechanisms that block paths or sight)
  
• Weapons and armor can also improve stats and abilities. Bungie team decided to not take the route of incremental numerical differences and rather focused of more descriptive potential (like boosting speed, reducing headshot damage, enhancing a specific ability, speeding up health regeneration etc...).
  
• Similar to focuses, gear also has talent trees that gains exp through use.
  
• Four tiers of classifying gear: Basic (White), Common (green), Superior (Purple), And Gold (Exotic)
  
• You can only wield/equip one exotic armor and one exotic weapon at any given time but can carry as many as we like and switch between them whenever.

This all sounds very interesting. I'm currently more excited than I was before.

Did anybody else catch that in the GI coverage? Thoughts?