It’s a topic that many people have been asking about, and revealed in an interview with IGN, Bungie’s Luke Smith has given the first tangible bit of information about Destiny’s end game content. Raids, Strikes, Bounties and Nightfall, some of the activities that players will participate in towards the end of their levelling experience and beyond.

“I think Destiny’s endgame begins as soon as you see the way the story ends, as soon as you see the way we wrap up the sort of first piece of the adventure that we’re going to tell because we want to set you back out into the world to keep going. We want to try to align your motivations as the player with the motivations of the character who you’ve been pushing around this world. So for us I think a bunch of the endgame starts right at level 20.”

Hailed as one of the pillars of the game Raids will see you and 5 of your friends venture into the unknown, a place that you will return to frequently, a place that will require a lot of communication and cooperation to traverse, a place that will provide hours of gameplay. Speaking about Raids Smith mentioned that:

“It will demand of you things you’ve never even really been asked to do in a shooter before… In a raid, when the raid begins at level 25, it’s not where it ends. Like part of going through the raid is the journey of gearing up; building your arsenal to react to the situations that it’s going to ask you to go through.”

Interestingly Bungie will not be providing a “match making” system for their Raids as they want Raids to be the sort of content you do with friends, and they believe that the content will be so difficult that grouping an inexperienced team together will not provide the best gaming experience for players.

Strikes on the other hand are similar to the dungeon style of gameplay experienced in other MMOs like World of Warcraft. Where Raid will take hours to complete, most Strikes will take between 20 – 60 minutes to finish.

“Let’s say you pick the level-22 Strike playlist – everything in that activity is going to be level 22. It’s going to be consistent. If you’re level 26, you’re going to have some relationship to it. You’re going to be more powerful than that activity.”

If any of you played the Destiny Beta then you may have played the Devil’s Lair Strike. Unlike Raids, Strikes feature that match making functionality and you can easily join a Strike at any level. I joined the Devil’s Lair Strike while I was only level 3. Needless to say, I was dealing very little damage to the level 6 – 8 enemies, but still really enjoyed the gameplay.

Speaking about what else there is that will keep players logging into Destiny every day, Smith mentioned bounties and Nightfall. Bounties are the daily quests that allow players to optimise their character, unlock rewards and gain currency. Nightfalls are activities that can come in daily or weekly format.

“If you’re a fresh level 20 you can play the Nightfall daily activity at level 22 and it’s going to be hard. It’s going to be challenging. But you can get through it, maybe. Maybe if you have some friends. The weekly Nightfall activity is something that pushes all the way out as far as the levelling allows you to go in Destiny. So it ends up occupying at the far end of the spectrum: this extremely high gameplay investment challenge. Like it’s both the toughest guys we can throw at you that’s going to require the best gear, and it’s going to have a bunch of modifiers on it that make it even harder.”

It sounds like Bungie have the plans in place to keep players interested and the content fresh for the hopefully long life of Destiny. We’re looking forward to the September release and will keep you posted with all the information in between and beyond.