Halo/Destiny Crossover Exotic Concept - Digital Design

Bungie, Inc. is an American video game developer located in Bellevue, Washington, United States. The company was established in June 1991 as Bungie Software Products Corporation by University of Chicago undergraduate student Alex Seropian, who later brought in programmer Jason Jones after publishing Jones' game Minotaur: The Labyrinths of Crete. Microsoft acquired Bungie in 2000; the project it was working on was repurposed into a launch title for Microsoft's Xbox console, called Halo: Combat Evolved. Halo became the Xbox's "killer app", selling millions of copies and spawning a billion dollar franchise. On October 5, 2007, Bungie announced that it had split from Microsoft and become a privately held independent company, Bungie LLC. The company later announced it's new partnership with Activision. Bungie revealed their newest franchise shortly thereafter, Destiny. Destiny was released to much controversy and success. 

Why does this matter? Well, it may not if you never played any of Bungie's games. But to those who do, it is clear that Bungie has had quite the history. They started off small, created Xbox's biggest franchise, then switched sides over to Activision with an entirely new franchise. The thing is, Destiny is quite similar to Halo. They are both set in the far future, with humans and aliens clashing over a multitude of planets. This has led many fans to request a Halo/Destiny crossover. Will it ever happen? Probably not. But I'll try my best to simulate it with the power of Digital Design.  

Our goal will be to create a simulation of what a Halo weapon would be like in Destiny. In this example, I'll be using my personal favorite weapon, the Focus Rifle. This process will take a good chunk of time. As such, we'll be reffering to Alexander Mayward's Guide to Photoshop CC.

To start off, we need to know what we want to make. The Focus Rifle functions very similarly to a traditional sniper- so we'll make it an Exotic Sniper Rifle. 

Here you can see the view of an Exotic from the menu. We'll need to replicate this design if we want it to look legitimate. 

Now that we have our plan, we'll need our resources. This includes a gun model, a gun side view for the icon, the background, and some UI elements. The process of recreating the UI is quite complex and would probably take most of the blog, so I'll skip that for now. 

The Focus Rifle model, from Halo Reach.

Menu icon from Halo Reach.

The menu background from Destiny 2.

Now that we have all our resources, we just have to slap it together, and then add text. I couldn't really think of a cool name, so I named it Jun's Guilty Pleasure after the marksman in the protagonist's squad from Halo Reach. I found one of my favorite quotes on the Sangheili (the race who built these weapons) and replicated the rest. The only real change in the UI I made was giving the weapon a 21 round "magazine". This is because the Focus Rifle is powered by a battery instead of a traditional magazine in the lore. 

After all is said and done, it should come out like this. 

Looks good, if I do say so myself. All we need to do now is export it and share with anyone you'd like. I was personally proud of this, so I uploaded it to the Destiny subreddit. If you wish, you can add a watermark to discourage others from stealing your artwork. Although its not pictured in this version, I did put one on my Reddit post, as I do not want others to use my work without credit. Some people may not mind, however. 

Here's a question for those of you that have played Halo/Destiny- if you could bring one weapon from Halo to Destiny, what would it be? 

 Works cited:

Mayward, Alexander. Photoshop Cc 2015: an Easy Beginner's Guide. Alexander Mayward, 2015.

Destiny is an Activision franchise. Halo and the Focus Rifle are both owned by Microsoft.