Titanfall had "hype" behind it, but I don't think it compares to the Destiny hype. The pitch to Activision must have been blissfully short: "We will make you a Halo MMO." I try to imagine the acquisitions manager opening their briefcase so fast that papers fly everywhere, and they're trying to read them in mid-air to find the right one, and they're swiping at them like a cat in a kind of slow motion, billion-dollar snowglobe.

The game must certainly sweep the Unlikely Helmet Awards. Everybody's face looks like the Jedi Training mask in Episode IV (I said Ep. 3 before because I am a mutant and a heretic). My helmet even as a larval Guardian is already complete nonsense which could only theoretically contain a head. And I'm a robot anyway, so when I take off the weird-ass, alien brainbox there is another equally strange shape beneath it. Just try to imagine the surprise inside the hangar! If you are a dork.

I played Destiny a long time ago, and I'm fairly certain I signed a document that said I could not tell you what I had played. Let me see how I can say this. You are not playing what I played before. It coulda gone a lotta ways. That's always the case with software, obviously. But I think they found the path.

I got it when you did, so I don't know much more than you do and I probably know less. Gabriel and I grabbed a few levels, gained access to the multiplayer Crucible, and generally saw a familiar face reflected as though by an odd mirror. The thought generally was that they were attempting to swerve toward Borderlands, but I don't think that's it: Borderlands is a first person Diablo. Loot sprays from slashed enemy jugulars in that legacy. You get loot here, but the game is not about loot. The game is about a combination of curated and algorithmic shotgun interactions with faces. It's a shooter first.

I haven't engaged with the fiction at all yet, and I feel somewhat disincentivized to do so by Peter Dinklage. Gabriel suggested that someone phoned it in for him, but I countered in the moment yesterday that phoning it in (whoever happens to have dialed) suggests that he didn't care. I submit that he is reading this script with active, smoldering contempt which - if nothing else - suggests an expenditure of agency.

I'll try to keep you up to date with our progress. We are hoping to have Onyxia on farm by Friday.

(CW)TB out.