Destiny: Rising is the long-rumored leap into mobile for the Destiny franchise, and the launch of the closed alpha test today has spawned some concerns from the community. That being said, most of these concerns are likely going to be ironed out over time. This is an alpha, after all, and the true launch of the game is probably a long way off. This will give the developers time to do any work they need to get the game in tip-top shape.
Concerns or no, the alpha seems to be off to a strong start. Players “appear” to be having fun with the game and Netease’s interpretation of the Destiny universe clearly had a lot of passion put into it. This was expressed by the dev team itself in their dev insight video back during the game’s announcement. Visually, it looks pretty good for being in an alpha state and for the most part, gameplay is pretty smooth. It’s also fun. Granted, I checked it out on a ROG Phone 8 Pro Edition so graphics are maxed and I haven’t had many issues with the frame rate.
The downside there is that you do have to make a choice between having the higher resolution graphics or the higher frame rate. You can’t have both. That isn’t really the largest concern though. What seems to be the biggest talking point is how much Netease is going to lean into the microtransactions.
The Destiny: Rising alpha test reveals the game’s gacha mechanics
Gacha games are a popular genre in the mobile space, as is evidenced by behemoth titles like Genshin Impact and Honkai Star Rail. Destiny: Rising, too, is a gacha game that will have you completing pulls for new characters. And like other gacha games, all of those characters will be rated with a particular number of stars. This immediately brings forth concerns that the game features heavy pay-to-win mechanics and for now, it’s a bit tough to dispute that.
Without the game being available in a full launch state, there’s no clarity on how much real-world money will need to be spent to make these character pulls. Destiny: Rising could go the way of games like Genshin. Genshin gives players ample opportunities to receive the necessary in-game digital currency needed to pull new characters. Getting them is still not guaranteed, but you do have plenty of sources for this currency. So you can easily get by without spending much or any money.
The fear for some, is that Destiny: Rising won’t follow this path. And instead will be more along the lines of Diablo Immortal (another game developed initially by Netease), which had several issues with heavy-handed microtransactions throughout its first six months to a year. The other possible area where these microtransactions could come into play is with the game’s new weapon tier – mythic. Netease hasn’t said how you can acquire these and at this point, they don’t seem to be available in the alpha test.
But there’s a sneaking suspicion that these will be something you have to do the pull events for or just purchase outright.
The voice acting and dialogue fall a little short of what players know from Destiny 2
Another issue that we’ve seen discussed is the voice acting and dialogue. It’s very clear after some of our testing that this is a far cry from the quality of voice acting and dialogue you get in Destiny 2. Bungie has nothing to do with the dialogue writing and it didn’t hire the voice actors. This becomes apparent pretty early on as you meet and talk to more of the game’s NPC characters. That being said, I am hesitant to say that it’s “bad.” Some of it is fine, just not great. Other exchanges definitely need some work.
For example, your first meeting with the Gunsmith starts off fine enough, but then you reach a point where the voice acting switches from what seems to be an English voice actor to voice acting with a British accent. This is right in the middle of the dialogue which is what makes it so strange. What’s more, is that the subtitles for the dialogue have an “[AI]” label next to them. Seemingly indicating that the dialogue and voice acting were generated with AI. Which is a whole other can of worms.
Other dialogue and voice acting seem to be well done. So it’s kind of a mixed bag at the moment. Hopefully, these are things that improve throughout the game’s pre-launch development.
Solid gameplay will likely keep players coming back
I can’t say for certain if this will really catch on with the diehard Destiny crowd. It seems unlikely to capture the excitement of the majority of that community. Especially given that the main Destiny game, Destiny 2, is a better game and is sort of in a lull right now. However, some will no doubt find it a fun casual game to play from time to time. That being said, the gameplay is solid. As a Destiny 2 fan who has played since the alpha of that game, a Destiny mobile game was an intriguing prospect. I also enjoy gacha games, so this was a win-win for me personally.
Is it something I plan to dump hundreds of hours into? Perhaps, maybe over a long period of time. Certainly not on the scale of my Destiny 2 playtime. But, Netease has a promising title on its hands. Gunplay feels good, perhaps better than most shooters on mobile, and it’s really the only looter shooter on mobile. So it has essentially zero competition in this space.
There’s a lot of content that isn’t going to be available in the alpha test. So it’s unclear how much longevity and replay value will be offered. Early testing has proven the game to be fun though, and I think it’s at least worth checking out for both Destiny veterans and newcomers alike.