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X-Men: Destiny is less than a week away, and though we’ve seen plenty of videos of characters appearing in the game, I still feel like there’s a lot we don’t quite know about it yet. X-Men games have shined as RPGs and developer Silicon Knights sticks to that format, but unlike previous X-Men titles, we’re playing as all new mutants on the rise to becoming a full fledged X-Man or a Brotherhood member. Destiny is the big theme of the game, and we know an emphasis on player control is a huge part of manipulating the games story, which is likely why we’ve learned so few story details. The story is penned by Mike Carey (X-Men, X-Men: Legacy) and begins at a memorial for the fallen Charles Xavier, where the mutant/human conflict is reaching its boiling point.

You, the player, take control of one of three new mutants and make the choice to be a friend or foe to human kind. Your three mutant choices are:

Aimi: Born in Japan, Aimi’s two mutant parents smuggled her into America to escape the growing mutant concentration camps. She’s a young mutant full of angst and anger toward her parents who she feels abandoned her.

Adrian: Ironically, Adrian is the son of members of an anti-mutant extremist group know as the Purifiers. When Adrian’s father dies in battle, he is raised by his father’s Purifier associates, and taught to hate any creature not of “pure-blood.”

Grant: A college football player with dreams of going pro, Grant has no interest or knowledge of politics, or the escalating conflict between humans and mutants.

I’m definitely open minded about the game, and of course I’m excited just because X-Men is in the title, but part of me couldn’t help but be disappointed that Activision and Silicon Knights aren’t going 100 percent on the whole “player control” idea. Each of the above three characters has some kind of potential to become interesting as the game plays out, but it would have been really nice to see Mass Effect level customization. Building your own character from the ground up offers a much richer and more personal level to any story, and applying that to the X-Men franchise would really be the X-Men fan’s dream come true.

And of course it wouldn’t be an X-Men game without X-Men. And even though you won’t actually be playing as your favorite member of homosuperior, you’ll at least be fighting alongside them. Here are a few mutants confirmed for appearances:

Cyclops
Magneto
Wolverine
Emma Frost
Juggernaut
Pixie
Mystique
Colossus
Havok
Gambit
Iceman
Northstar
Forge
Toad
Caliban

And I’m sure we’ll be seeing more, if even in just a cameo.

The next question about this game would be mutant power customization, and, again, we haven’t learned many details other than that you’ll be accumulating abilities as you play and can stack powers on top of more powers, and given the amount of videos we’ve seen from the developer, we’ve been told next to nothing (see the X-Men: Destiny Stan Lee video here). I really would have liked to have seen at least a brief tutorial or explanation about how the customization features work.

I’m also very disappointed in Marvel. Though it’s nonessential for every one of their games, I was hoping for the comic book prequel that you usually see with each comic book video game. It definitely would have softened the blow of having to play as a predetermined character instead of building your own.

Maybe I’m coming off as a bit complacent here, and maybe that’s because this isn’t the epic X-Men dream game I’ve always wanted (something along the lines of DCUOnline would do nicely), but these are all issues I know my fellow X-Men fans have pondered about this game. Next week I’ll have my full overview of the game from the X-Men fan’s perspective, and I promise you, the reader, and Activision and Silicon Knights, I won’t be holding back on my criticism.

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Andrew Hurst
andrewhurst@comicattack.net
@andrewEhurst