Halo co-creator Mark Lehto's new game, Disintegration, was officially revealed during Gamescom 2019 with a brand new gameplay trailer, and it looks a lot like Destiny. Lehto previously released a Disintegration teaser back in early July, announcing the game's full Gamescom reveal.
Lehto co-created the concept for Halo: Combat Evolve when he began working at Bungie in 1997 as art director. After the first Halo, Lehto was an art director on Halo 2, Halo 3, and Halo: ODST, becoming creative director of Halo: Reach and an unspecified new game (most likely Destiny). Lehto left Bungie in 2012, founding Disintegration development studio V1 Interactive and beginning work on the new game.
V1 Interactive and publisher Private Division revealed Disintegration in a new trailer. The trailer features a robotic pilot speaking to a vehicle later revealed to be called a "Gravcycle." He discusses the past with the cycle as he performs a pre-flight inspection before the trailer cuts to gameplay footage. The footage shows the pilot flying (in a first-person perspective) behind three other robotic characters - a large, mech-like humanoid and two smaller robots - into battle in various environments, including some PUBG-like farmland. Private Division later revealed in a press release that Disintegration takes place in a fictional near-future where humans have placed their brains inside robotic bodies in order to avoid extinction in a process called Integration. In the game's single-player campaign, players take on the role of the pilot from the trailer, Romer Shoal, to fight against an organization called Rayonne that seeks to force all of humanity to Integrate. Disintegration will also feature three distinct multiplayer game modes that focus on team-based battles where players coordinate ability usage among ground units and the Gravcycle.
Disintegration happens to have quite the aesthetic resemblance to co-op shooters like the game-changing Destiny 2: Shadowkeep and BioWare's disappointing Anthem, which makes sense given Lehto's history as an art director at Bungie. But despite the superficial similarities, Disintegration seems to be actually quite different. It appears that the game's multiplayer modes will be separate from its main campaign, meaning there won't be the same kind of co-op loot grind found in Destiny. According to Lehto, the game will challenge players to be more aware of the "battlespace" than most first-person shooters, making strategic decisions to win battles.
Private Division didn't provide many details on how exactly that will work, but there are a few clues as to how it could function. Private Division's official YouTube account liked a comment on the announcement trailer that says, "FPS RTS game? looks very interesting." This implies that the commentor's suspicions are correct, and that Disintegration will incorporate real-time strategy elements with shooter combat. From the press release and the trailer, it seems players will command a group of robotic troops while hovering above battle in the Gravcycle, simultaneously making their own contributions to the battle with the Gravcycle's weaponry. This allows players to, as Lehto said in the press release, "sit both within and above combat."
Disintegration will launch digitally on PC, PS4 and Xbox One for $49.99. No release date has been set for the game, but it's planned to come out sometime between April 1, 2020, and March 31, 2021.
Source: Private Division