Destiny By Me
Maybe…maybe the REAL loot is the friends we’ve made along the way.
Destiny recently turned five years old as a franchise. Its first iteration was what got me to buy a PlayStation 4 about six months after its release. Working part-time for minimum wage takes a toll on saving enough for one of those bad boys. Friends of mine couldn’t stop raving about it and were enthralled. But before I got to throw myself into this world, I found it empty of anyone I expected to play it with. The reviews, the poor post-launch content release drought, and general waning of interest had left me alone with my journey. I was heavily through the campaign when I got hit up by one of those very same friends.
“So you got a PS4, why are you playing Destiny?”
Like a small trickle of water in the ceiling slowly becoming a deluge, one friend’s inquiry gave way to curiosity. And then it happened again, another friend hopping into a party chat, asking to confirm what they can’t believe with their own eyes. “Wait, why are you guys playing Destiny?” Nothing new had come out, there was no change in the content. But a new set of eyes was seeing the game for the first time and, with that, would come the awe and splendor of living through someone’s first experience vicariously. I quickly made a name for myself. To the stupor of my friends, I incessantly read the Grimoire app with every unlock. Running through a raid or strike with me was like going on a tour of a museum with that guide who seems like he’s an official guide, but his badge says “volunteer.”
Aseph, DJ, Hooli, Ulti, and the rest of you, if you guys are out there, I still speak fondly of you all. You never forget your first crew. I’ll never forget my first time through Vault when it hit you all for the first time that I had never been through it, and you taught me the call outs. How you all laughed when someone jokingly referred to Vanessa Carlton’s “Thousand Miles” beginning lyrics and I sang the rest of the song. (1K mi. still slaps, don’t @ me) Those early memories of Destiny are some of my fondest – from being carried through raids, to be carried through my first Lighthouse.
But friends move on and we make new ones. My time with Destiny came to an end with the rest of the world when we all said goodbye to the City and Tower as we knew it. Destiny 2 was a different beast and, when the time came, I got tapped to be in a raid team to try and blind run Calus. For those not familiar with the term, a blind run is when you have one friend who somehow convinces all of you to make the grave and disastrous mistake of not looking anything up beforehand, and dying for fourteen hours. Over. And. Over. And. Over. To this day I can’t go into the Shadow Realm in the Calus fight. The dogs…I still get chills hearing their howl. But then Destiny 2 went to PC and we said goodbye to more of our friends.
The latest bunch of hooligans I run with have done a few of the last raids together. We cleared Last Wish while executing the most difficult challenge a Guardian can; executing flawless dabbing protocol with all dabbing subroutines firing on all cylinders. I can feel one of them cringing as they read this.
The sordid sci-fi/fantasy hybrid game that we’d all come to learn was piece crafted together from what should have been a pile of flaming hot garbage. Beautiful, incredibly interesting, and positively fascinating, but flaming hot garbage nonetheless – even according to Bungie. Also, Sir. Paul Macartney did a song for it, which like, super weird flex. But the song’s a bit of a banger. Like, it’s almost like his version of “Imagine,” but without any of the pretentious bullshit, and cuts straight to the slappin’ parts. Which is what Paul did all the time during the tenure of the Beatles. Don’t like my take? Don’t care. Go back to Rock History 101, you dweeb.
On that note of good music, Stand By Me is a song by Ben E. King. It’s a popular tune, made extraordinarily so after being featured in the hit and beloved classic film by the same name. The song is a plea, made to an anonymous “darling.” King claims he was inspired by the Spiritual, Stand By Me Father, and its third verse refers to a Psalm. But, to modern listeners, the song goes perhaps much further. Instead, it is a plea to someone to be by your side – a basic human connection. It is the faith that we have in each other will be rewarded by reciprocating senses of loyalty, care, and affection. It is a song of camaraderie, a song of family, a song of friendship, and even a song of love. It has been swayed to in fox holes and first dances at weddings alike.
It’s quite funny in many ways how the song can even be used to describe the scenario of the game’s universe – a desolate planet, the ruins of Old Russia, the rusted over metal shells being all that remain of your surroundings as you start the game. Your companion, your Ghost, is both your savior and your only true companion throughout the game’s initial storyline. The only guiding light is the massive Traveler, humanity’s protector, bereft in orbit, like the crypt of a god.
For five years, I have plunged headfirst into a game unlike I’ve ever done before. Combining my love for looter-shooters and MMOs, Bungie created something they could truly call their own, and would be their ark of salvation, as they embarked from the frictional relationship with Blizzard-Activision into the embrace of independence. With Shadowkeep coming out on October 1, 2019, we look to head back to the moon. And yes, the moon is haunted.
As friends come and go, as the sky tumbles and falls, and the mountains crumble into the sea – Stand by me, little light. Fellow Guardians. Stand by me.
