Destiny wasn't a failure, it was one of the greatest triumphs of modern gaming.

Destiny has been the butt of many jokes over the years, and for good reason. Bungie made a lot of stupid decisions, from awkwardly applying changes to character customization to ruining the release of entire expansions. But despite these mistakes, hardcore fans always stuck around, knowing that the best was worth it.

I don't consider myself a hardcore player these days, but I've played every campaign and expansion pack over the years and probably spent hundreds of hours on Destiny when it first released in 2014. I've completed a round and consider myself a seasoned player of one of the greatest first-person shooters of all time. That statement may sound like an exaggeration, but I mean it, and I hope its ill-fated conclusion doesn't blanket Destiny's legacy with unfair assumptions.

After Destiny was released to the world over a decade ago, many believed it would be the biggest game in the world, and I think it's delivered on that promise many times in gaming history. But nothing can last forever. This is especially true when a company that seems destined to make bad decision after bad decision acquires the studio that made it happen. So, with the development team fired and scattered, I'd like to briefly remember Destiny's long history and why it will always hold a special place in my heart.

Destiny is still the best feeling shooter on the market

I found Destiny to be truly amazing to play when it was first announced. Bungie has been redefining shooters on consoles for the past decade with its Halo franchise, and after pushing the formula as far as it can go, they left Titans behind. I was hoping to do something more ambitious in the next game, with more weapons, more abilities, and a world richer with stories to tell and characters to meet.

I remember pouring hours into alpha and beta testing before starting college, seeing the potential early on, and grinning like an idiot every time I took the perfect headshot of an upcoming Fallen. Destiny's gunplay has always been top-notch, and no competitor outside of Titanfall has ever come close to how awesome it feels to play.

And the gameplay has become more refined with each new expansion, whether Bungie has introduced new weapon types, streamlined the feel of switching between loadouts, or made the act of equipping armor and building your collection feel truly meaningful. This is a key part of Destiny that keeps players coming back, even though numerous competitors have tried and failed to replicate its innovative gear system.

Nothing can beat the light levels slowly but surely increasing as we prepare for the raid drop. We know we are still ready for the fight of our lives. From a gameplay perspective, Destiny is a top-notch shooter that I doubt can ever be beaten.

Even when the first Destiny was released and rightfully criticized for its pointless story and characters, its gameplay was still praised as one of the best. You're free to jump through perfectly designed spaces and battle enemies large and small that give you as much or as little as you want, and over time the level design becomes more and more sophisticated to meet the needs of players.

What I love most about Destiny is the relatively simple nature of story missions, strikes, and dungeons, followed by raids that tell the player absolutely nothing. You have to find out for yourself. Spending hours in a newly released raid and making it to the end with a group of friends feels amazing, even more so than in a traditional MMORPG.

Bungie has never been afraid to learn from Destiny's failures

Now that Destiny has received its final live service update and most of the talent involved in implementing it over the years has been fired, I fear people will soon be calling the game a failure. Despite their immense talent, they didn't have what it took to last in an environment dominated by Fortnite, Roblox, and Call of Duty.

I wish Bungie had been more responsive and survivable, but this isn't a game that could survive a licensed crossover and instead had to continue building its own world. Star Wars tried that to no avail, and Sony wasn't willing to spend the time or money needed to make a full-fledged sequel a reality.

But to claim that Destiny didn't learn from its failures or listen to its fans to survive is a complete lie. For a long time (especially after the release of Taken King until the release of Destiny), this was one of the biggest online games in the world.

Destiny 2 The Final Shape cover art with all major characters overlaid on a space-themed background.

People logged in to see what Xur was selling each week, and the updates leading up to each new expansion had people like me waiting to see how the story of light and dark would finally end. Each new expansion was a massive deal that broke player count records as Destiny came back on the map. When the Witch Queen arrived, it was arguably a bigger deal than ever. Now, just a few years later, it's gone.

As a fan and critic, it's been fun to follow the decision-making logic Bungie has adopted and how they've tried to listen to fans and please company executives. Even though the potential was always there in the first game, it had to push out lackluster expansion packs that didn't deliver until the Taken King. It then had a brief period of independence before Sony came along and slowly but surely drove Destiny into the ground.

After the release of The Final Shape and the end of a decades-long saga, both Bungie and Sony seem to have struggled to figure out what form Destiny could take moving forward. Lightweight, small updates for a passionate audience were no longer enough, and the overall value of the original acquisition was vastly overestimated, and everyone suffered.

Unfortunately, things couldn't have continued without a major investment that Sony wasn't prepared to provide, and here we are. Since Marathon has already become public enemy number one for being a live service shooter released by Sony, I fear Destiny will end up stuck in the same camp, long before the stigma associated with the genre.

Now that Destiny has faded from the modern gaming consciousness and is remembered as just another victim of our current environment, I'd like to remember just how many times it rose to the top of the world and helped revolutionize both the shooter and live service genres with creative mechanical ideas, unparalleled combat, and a visual identity that remains unmatched to this day. It wasn't a failure. Now time is up and Bungie has no choice but to move on.