This past weekend Bungie, the creators of Halo, finally took the covers off of their next project, Journey. Ambitious does not begin to describe what Destiny is. Not only is this the company’s first game outside the safety of Microsoft’s umbrella, but it is an entire series of games that will involve a brand new universe and occupy the developers next ten years. Ten years!!

When they struck a deal with Activision to publish the game the documents revealed showed that Destiny is being made already sequel ready and the first game will release this fall on Xbox 360 and PS3 and also, presumably, for the next gen consoles as well. Every sequel after will be released strictly for the next generation.

Destiny’s plot revolves around the last portion of humanity to survive an apocalyptic event. The only piece of humanity left were saved when a mysterious ship, known as The Traveler, began to float above a section of Earth. It is always there, hanging as a somber protector for what reason no one knows. Humanity has put the pieces back together under The Traveler and begun to explore the galaxy again. With this comes new threats in the form of alien life that is looking to finish off the remnants of humanity. Destiny will see you play as a guardian, tasked to push back these forces and protect humanity.

Bungie is coining a new term for Destiny’s gameplay, the “shared world shooter”. Not wanting to call the game a true MMO, Destiny will be available to play completely in single player, or at any time, you can join some friends or strangers and help out in missions they are doing and decide to stick together or go do your own thing with your story. How this will work cross-platform remains to be seen. Will it be only 360 players that can match up with 360 players and vice versa or will Bungie somehow work there magic and have all consoles playing on Destiny’s world in one big sci-fi love fest?

Watching the video above also shows off that social integration will play a big part in Destiny. While the specifics are not known as to what will be the basis of the app, it would be easy to assume you would get story updates as well as messages from friends as they interact in the world. You may be able to set up party missions but that is just pure speculation on my part.

It looks as though you will not be stuck on Earth in Destiny. You will have the ability to go to other planets, but it is not known if the space travel will be able to be controlled or if Destiny will have space battles. Even if the first game does not, it would not surprise me to see them added in sequels, especially with the horsepower of the next-gen consoles.

This is just the opening salvo of Destiny from Bungie. Expect to see a lot more from now until its planned fall release. I would expect a massive blowout at E3 this year to truly give gamers a sense of the scale of this project.