Insight Editions and Bungie released The Art of Destiny earlier this month for a suggested retail price of $45, but you can get it on Amazon for under $30. It’s a 216 page hard cover measuring 1 x 11.5 x 10.2 inches, with good quality paper. As you would expect from Insight, it is a beautifully put together product.
There’s a foreword written by Bungie’s Lorraine McLees.
If you enjoy Destiny, then this a book you’ll like. If you just like collecting art books, then this likewise is a book that you’ll like. I write about Destiny every day here on the site, so I personally love the art book.
Hardcore fans of the game will enjoy the look at the early concept art to see what the early incarnations of the Fallen, Hive, and Cabal looked like. For example, the Cabal being rhinoceros like race.
Of course it also leads to the “why didn’t they do that?” mentality repeatedly. Instead of The Tower, they had The Ship. A massive ship in orbit that Guardians come back to for the social area. Eventually “The Ship” became The Traveler and it’s hangar social area became the Tower Plaza. Considering The Traveler does nothing, I would have preferred The Ship. The book is full of stuff like that.
The early character screen/menu also looked much better (not that the final version looks bad). “Character” was called “Avatar,” there was a clan tab and a treasure tab (I assume that became Inventory). There was even a cool looking 100% screen that has things listed like “My Race master,” “My Class master,” “Arena Master Faction,” “Raid Master Faction,” and three additional Agents besides Xur. Something like it should most definitely had ended up in the full game, even if it was just Grimore based.
Hunter’s had a human mentor named Joden, who was for some reason replaced by the Exo Cayde.
There’s interesting factoids that you might otherwise not realize as well, like Hive Ogres are actually just deformed Thrall’s. As described by Shi Kai Wang, the Ogres are “corrupted and infected Thrall’s. They share the same anatomy as the Thrall but are larger and attack differently, because they have been deformed to what they are now. Looking at it now, I can definitely see it. Prior to reading it in this book, I would have never known ogres were just giant deformed thralls.
The Cabal are still rhinoceros like, you just don’t get to see it as much now because of the helmets they wear. Still, if for some reason you’ve ever wanted to see a naked Cabal, this art book as the picture of it.
There’s also detailed looks at the weapons the various enemy types use, which really makes me wish we could use pick up these weapons and use them because they are very cool looking, particularly the weapons of the Fallen.
Unfortunately outside of a few shots, the book doesn’t give away much of the early stuff. There’s no Old Chicago or anything that would show a redoing of the story or content cut, and I would have liked to have seen more of the early menu/character screens and other stuff that didn’t make it into the final game or changed quite a bit.
Still, for a Destiny fan, it’s a must own book.
The Art of Destiny gets a four out of five: GREAT.
* A copy of this book was provided by the publisher for review.
