Let me be clear, I’m not dying, least I don’t think I am. But if you’ll sit and take a minute to read this, I would like to tell you a story.
A long time ago, a young Smiffy93 eagerly preordered what looked like the most revolutionary new game around. I was so excited to play Destiny, that I think I skipped work to play it at launch. I was around 20 years old, still living in my parents house. Instantly I was hooked, I would spend hours every day roaming the Cosmodrome, Grinding quests, and battling the same enemies day in and day out, week in and week out, always hoping for those exciting drops, the exotics, the god rolls, etc.
Not long after that one of my best friends from high school, Randy, whom I had not been in contact with since we graduated invited me out for dinner with he and his fiancée. We had the typical humdrum conversations about what we’ve been doing since high school and how school was going, but then the conversation turned to video games. I mention I’ve been playing this new game called Destiny, and wouldn’t you know it? So had my old friend and his fiancée.
When I went home that evening, we both logged on and added each other on Xbox live, and from there it was history. We would spend almost every waking hour that we weren’t at school or work playing destiny together. Weeks turn into months, and even though we would spend the majority of our time playing destiny, my friend and I grew closer and closer. There were nights where my girlfriend would let me raid instead of hanging out with her; I think she thought I was the biggest dork in the world but she stuck by me. We would hang out outside of Xbox live more, we rekindled our friendship and truly over the years became brothers. We would spend so many nights raiding the Vault of Glass that it is permanently burned into my mind.
Eventually he, his fiancée, and I Formed a clan where we made many new Xbox live friends. As month rolled on, we faced new enemies like Crota, and eventually Oryx, but our love for the game never changed. There were days where I would think how amazing it was that we had rekindled our friendship over something as silly as a video game, but there we were.
Months turned to years, and something funny happened. For the first time in my video gaming career I was good. I’m not good enough to make money, or play competitively. But we we’re good enough to be Sherpas and carry other guardians on the same path that we had walked so many times before.
As our lives in the games grew, so did our real lives. Randy asked me to be his best man and he and his fiancée were married in a small but beautiful ceremony, where there were no shortage of Destiny quotes. Eventually I got engaged to my girlfriend, and he and his wife would spend many nights out of the month either playing Destiny with me, or hanging out with us.
But then something happened, Destiny 2 came out right around the same time I bought my house and married my wife. There was a hiccup as time for gaming became scarce, but our friendship was strong and our love for Destiny endured. While we didn’t log quite as many hours in Destiny 2, we still spent a long time perfecting our craft on weekends and the occasional irresponsible late night.
When Covid hit, my work as a paramedic had me working long hours and my time spent gaming was limited, but it was a welcome relief to be able to sit and relax for an hour or two every few days with Randy. We were no where near as good as we had been before, but we still loved it. The thing is, Randy was always the go to guy for questions. It didn’t matter what your question was about, Randy would have an answer for you. So when Destiny became more and more complex and my time between playing increased, Randy was the guy. Even though I was barely a shell of my former glory, I was still able to have fun and have a few laughs playing the game that we love so much.
But then something happened, one day Randy got sick. At first we all thought it was Covid or something similar, but after a few trips to the hospital, we were given some of the most earth shattering news I could imagine. Randy had leukemia.
The months after that were fast. After spending nearly 2 months in the hospital, my beloved friend came home weak, tired, but ever in good spirits. We didn’t play many video games, And when we did it wasn’t the same late night laugh fest that it had once been. Destiny became a distant memory, and we always talked about firing it up again and getting the old clan back together, but I think we both knew that Destiny had outgrown us.
He died on a Saturday in April of 2021.
I spent His last days with him in his house alongside his family and his wife and his pets and all of his destiny memorabilia. I’ll never forget one of the last times I saw him, he was so conked out from the morphine that was managing his pain that he wouldn’t speak and couldn’t open his eyes, but when his wife told him that I was there his face lit up with the biggest smile I’ve ever seen.
After he died, I told myself that I couldn’t go back to playing destiny, it just didn’t feel right. But after a while I had convinced myself that he wouldn’t want me to wallow in my own self-pity and he would want me to continue the legacy that we had forged. Randy was not a selfish man.
When I downloaded the game again, it came with all of the bells and whistle‘s and all of the downloadable content that I had missed over the last couple of years. I fired it up to find a guardian that I did not recognize. It was me all right, it’s just, wasn’t who I had left in the tower. I played for a while, I tried farming and grinding, I tried Exploring all of the old regions that I used to know better than the roads of my hometown, but I realized something; Destiny had left me behind.
This game is different than almost any other game I’ve ever played. The stories and memories that I have from this game are going to be with me like memories of a long lost friend. Even though they’re just ones and zeros blinking on a TV screen, they meant more to me than I ever realized until now. My wife and I are expecting our first child in December, and when I think of the young kid that I was, staying up late and playing video games, eating Doritos and drinking beer, And going on journeys with my best friend, I wonder where the years have gone.
I’m going to tell my son about the journeys that Randy and I had. I’m going to tell him about the guardians and the late nights and the beautiful memories that I have. I know this is just a game, but I hope that all of you get even a sliver of this experience out of Destiny.
The funny thing about the Vault of Glass, the raid we loved so very much, is for a brief moment, you are suspended out of time. And those nights, time didn’t matter.
I’m logging out because Destiny has left me behind, and I think that’s right where I need to be. To learn to leave the past as a beautiful distant memory, not to try to force it or reclaim it, but to cherish it and learn from it; that is the great lesson that Randy taught me.
But for now, I think I’m going to sit here, and look out over the Cosmodrone where it all began, one last time.
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