'Destiny' Game Beta Countdown: PS4 Users Gain Access Next Week

The countdown to the “Destiny” beta is on, with Bungie launching the highly-anticipated test for Sony’s PlayStation 4 next week. The phase will run from July 17 to the 28 on the PS4 and from July 23 to the 28 on the Xbox One.

“Destiny” developer Bungie launched an official beta trailer earlier this week in anticipation for the event, along with the following description:

The Destiny Beta is your first step on the path to adventure, beginning July 17th on PlayStation and July 23rd on Xbox. Explore the vast expanses of the world of Destiny, fight through riveting story missions, strike deep within enemy strongholds alongside a fireteam, or compete for glory against your fellow Guardians in the action-packed competitive multiplayer.

The “Destiny” alpha ran from June 12-16 -- and Bungie, based in Bellevue, Washington, reported more than 6 million games were played during the test.

“Putting our Alpha out there lit a new kind of fire here at Bungie. It feels like we’ve been reborn. Putting alpha code out in the wild is always a risk; that build is ancient by our standards, riddled with content and bugs we’d never allow through to ship,” Bungie said on its blog June 20. “In many cases, the really rough and jagged edges had been hammered smooth long ago, making it all the more difficult to see them discovered, but in just as many others, there’s still work to do, and the only way to get it done is to let you touch down in our world to tear the place wide open.”

“Destiny” will take place 700 years in the future in a post-apocalyptic setting after a lucrative and successful period of exploration and peace called the Golden Age. The game is set in a universe where humans have colonized a number of livable planets in the solar system. But a disastrous event known as “the Collapse” saw the mysterious destruction of these colonies, leaving mankind nearly extinct. When humans attempt to repopulate and recover after the Collapse, aggressive and dangerous alien races are discovered in various towns and cities. Players will have the task of investigating and destroying the aliens before the human race is wiped out.