Destiny Reviews Will Be Later Than You Expect

Destiny will be launching worldwide next week. Unfortunately, gamers won't have many reviews to consult before picking up the game.

The review copies for Destiny will be sent out to press at the end of this week. However, the game's servers won't actually go live until Monday morning. The result is that reviewers won't be able to start playing until the day before the game officially launches.

By that point, many gamers will be able to play Destiny as well. Bungie plans to turn on the game's public servers as soon as it's September 9th at the International Date Line. In other words, players living in North America could be playing as early as Monday morning.

In a way, it's a good thing that reviewers won't be playing before everyone else. This means that they'll be playing on the same servers as everyone else. If there are launch-day issues thanks to overcrowding or bugs, they'll be mentioned in the reviews. Early reviews of online-centric games SimCity and Battlefield 4 were written based on pre-launch experiences so they didn't mention any of the huge problems that came on release day.

The downside, though, is that you won't have stacks of reviews to check out. You may have to settle for a live-stream or review-in-progress. Fortunately there's no embargo on streaming gameplay so you could check out a good chunk of the game before buying. I'm guessing half of you prefer just watching video footage anyway so this isn't much of an inconvenience.

As much as I'd like to think that my or other critics' reviews will make a difference, Destiny's probably going to sell well no matter what. Bungie primed gamers for release with a huge beta on all consoles. This test put their game into the hands of millions of players and hooked quite a few of them in the process.

Press have been mostly taken with the game, too. Early previews have been full of glowing praise. Some of that praise is a little over-the-top (is it really "more than a game"?) but regardless, it's cranked up the hype to extreme levels.

Analysts are expecting the game to sell 10 to 15 million copies just based on the pre-order numbers. The game could potentially outsell high-profile sequels like Assassin's Creed Unity and Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare. That would be an impressive feat for a brand-new franchise.

Publisher Activision needs Destiny to be a big hit as well. The company has bet big on the game. They've spent hundreds of millions making and marketing it. This makes Destiny the most expensive game that they - or any other company - has ever made.

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