X-Men Destiny is the upcoming Silicon Knights developed game from
Activision featuring Marvel’s famous mutants. Whereas the previous X-Men
games let you play as some of the notable members of the iconic team,
X-Men Destiny casts you as a freshly minted mutant whose future is
shaped by some quality time spent with the gang. We had the chance to
get a hands-off look at the upcoming game, guided by Activision reps who
demoed a few sections of the unique title.
X-Men Destiny’s story is being penned by Mike Carey, writer of the X-Men
Legacy book, and revolves around three new mutants--Aimi Yoshida, Grant
Alexander, and a third as yet unrevealed character. The tale begins at a
San Francisco peace rally in memory of Professor X who, in the game’s
timeline, is dead. The rally goes poorly, which is pretty much the norm
for any mutant related gathering, and the character you’ve chosen to
play as becomes involved in a conflict between the X-Men and the
Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. The events at the rally cause a chain of
events that send your character on a journey of self-discovery and
evolution that will tip the balance in the conflict between the two
factions. How that all plays out is entirely up to you and the choices
that you make over the course of the game.
We got a taste of how this is going to work in our demo which showcased
combat, exploration, power customization, choice, and a boss fight. The
demo featured Aimi--the pig tail sporting fifteen-year-old wielding
energy attacks which are one of the three core powers you’ll choose when
starting the game--fighting her way through Chinatown in search of
Gambit. This portion of the demo focused on showcasing the power
mechanics as Aimi dealt with waves of thugs on her trip through
Chinatown. Each character will have several options in battle. The
combat fundamentals are light and heavy attacks that can be chained
together into different combos to dole out damage that the game tracks.
These attacks come in two flavors: those enhanced by your character’s
X-gene which adds some mutant power kick or, if you exhaust yourself,
standard physical melee attacks that don’t do anywhere near as much
damage. The key to successful combat appears to be managing your
character’s powers. If you perform too many attacks using your power,
you’ll drain your m-meter and have to make do with normal attacks until
it regenerates. In addition, you’ll also have access to special attacks
fueled by your m-meter. The powerful attacks are tiered and based on how
full the meter is, with the attack you perform when it’s fully charged
being the most devastating.
The big component of the power system in X-Men Destiny is the way you’ll
be able to customize your powers by mixing and matching X-genes in
offensive, defensive, and utility slots. You’ll earn different genes
throughout the game by exploring and completing missions. The genes will
be based on characters from the X-universe. In addition, you’ll be able
to find and wear costumes that are an homage to those familiar
characters that will yield special bonuses when combined with the proper
X-genes- creating a “set”.
Towards the end of the Chinatown demo, Aimi comes across a package
containing an X-gene compound that can give non-,mutants powers.
Unfortunately so do reps from each of the factions: Gambit for the
Brotherhood and Colossus and Surge from the X-Men, which led to an
example of the game’s choices. After each rep made their case for why
Aimi should hand it over to them, gameplay froze and prompted a choice.
Reps on hand stated that the choices made in these “destiny” moments
will impact what X-genes you earn and which characters will help you out
over the course of the adventure. Aimi chose to hand the package off to
Gambit, which affected her status with the Brotherhood faction.
The final part of the demo was a boss fight against John Sublime in a
secret complex run by the Purifiers and U-Men, two forces who aren’t
fans of the X-Men. Sublime’s goal is to use the X-gene compound
discussed earlier to empower his forces, which is a problem you have to
deal with. Sublime injects himself with a compound based on Colossus’
gene and morphs into an armored behemoth which sets off a boss
encounter. For the fight our demoer outfitted Aimi with Quicksilver’s
X-genes in all her slots and the Quicksilver costume which yielded a
speed bonus which came in handy for dealing with Sublime’s attacks. The
battle was a traditional multipart beat-fest that had Sublime switching
attack patterns. Obviously Aimi triumphed, which lead to a spectacular
finish that saw her making use of Surge’s X-gene.
Overall, the demo was interesting and showcased some intriguing ideas
and gameplay. There were a raft of cameos either in person or via an
X-gene. Colossus, Wolverine, Surge, Northstar, Quicksilver, Beast, Emma
Frost, and Toad were all represented in a quick glimpse of the X-gene
menu which looked sizable. We reckon the game will wind up featuring
just about most of the heavy hitters fans will be after, and hopefully
some surprises.
The visuals in X-Men Destiny have an interesting art direction and offer
a unique interpretation of the comic’s look. The environments we saw
offered a solid amount of detail and interactivity, which was
highlighted during the boss fight. The character models were along the
same lines and generally looked fine. The various special effects used
for powers offered a solid complement to the action. The only element
that caught our eye was the game’s color palette, which was a little
more muted than what we were expecting. The demo also featured some of
the work in progress quirks you’d expect from a game in development such
as a tricky camera and fluctuating framerate.
The audio was still coming together as well. Some of the effects sounded
a little muted, especially during the boss battle. But the beginnings
of character voice were on tap. Colossus sounded the most striking given
his Russian accent which fit, although Sublime sounded suitably
menacing too.
X-Men Destiny has a lot of interesting ideas at play from what we’ve
seen. We’re curious to see more on how your choices will affect the
story and just how many characters from the X- universe will appear in
one form or another. We’re also curious as to how the game is going to
be polished up for its release later this year. As we noted, there are
some rough edges to the package that we’d like to see smoothed out. As
it stands, X-Men Destiny has some intriguing ideas that could make the
game fun to play if they’re properly developed, despite the demo’s rough
edges. Look for more on the game on our E3 stage show and in the months
leading up to its launch later this year.
