Prepare to meet your destiny — with $500m game

The most expensive video game ever made has gone on sale around the world.

‘Destiny’ — with its budget of $500m — has been developed by studio Bungie, maker of the Halo franchise, and published by Activision, publisher of ‘Call Of Duty’, so there is plenty of buzz surrounding the launch.

The game is set 700 years in the future, with Earth and humanity in the midst of a war with a mysterious entity called The Darkness and its various alien allies.

What makes it unique is not only the budget, but that it is trying to fuse together several different genres of video game into one playable universe.

While there is a main story mode, like other first-person shooter games, a huge part of ‘Destiny’s’ appeal and mystery is found in the “shared world” aspect — online against other players.

Bungie president Harold Ryan said: “Destiny is the game we’ve always wanted to make. We’ve dreamt of this universe for years, so we couldn’t be more thrilled to swing open the doors and let fans shape this experience as they tell their unique stories in the game. For us, the next generation of games is all about allowing players to collide and interact with each other as they take on epic, action- packed adventures all their own.”

‘Destiny’ takes places within a single universe and gamers can meet up and interact with each other as they go about their missions.

Even once players have completed the central story mode, there will be a vast number of side missions to complete with friends and other gamers.

In short, no one yet knows exactly how big the ‘Destiny’ universe is.

The games industry is excited because of the unique format of the game, but believes the challenge lies in keeping interest when other big name titles are launched.