Pre-ordering Bungie's Destiny might get you access to the beta

While developer Bungie has been quiet about its upcoming shooter, Destiny, outside of events like Gamescom and E3, there are rumours of a beta event stirring. A Reddit user has spotted text on the official Destiny website that states that players who pre-order Destiny from specific retailers will be able to take part in the game’s beta.

At the time of writing, the text has disappeared from the website, but it can be seen if accessed through Google’s cache. The pre-order message apparently only showed up to those accessing the UK or Canada versions of the website.

Here’s some concept art in the mean time

Developed by Bungie and published by Activision, Destiny is going to hit stores some time next year and will be available on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Xbox One and PlayStation 4. Sadly enough, a PC version doesn’t seem to be in the works.

Destiny is set to be what the developers call a “shared-world shooter”, which means that it will have a persistent world, much like you have in MMOs. Owing to this, though, the game will require an active Internet connection to play, even if you’re just playing single player, much like Blizzard’s Diablo III. This would be the first time that a game requires players to be online even for single player on consoles.

As is usual for Bungie games, Destiny will be a sci-fi shooter where players will get to explore the solar system. As Guardians, players will fight alien species like Sandeaters, War Rhinos and Spider Pirates – which, may I add, sounds totally awesome. Other enemies sound even more awesome and include time-travelling robots and space zombies. The game is expected to have drop-in co-op, hence the always-online requirement, and will also have a slight magical element to it.