Multiplayer in Destiny is set to be unlike anything that’s come before. We spoke with Bungie technical director Chris Butcher about how it works under the hood and what displays to the player in the game. Find out the nuts and bolts of how Destiny differs from both MMOs and multiplayer shooters to carve its own path.

So we started out by thinking, “We want to have a single world that everybody can be in.”

What happens is everybody in the world can play together. There aren’t these barriers that are in place. You’re all playing in one connected online world.

What if you’re playing from Brazil or the West Coast of America? When we have this big pool of global players to matchmake with we’re able to use all of our technology to make sure you’re playing with people who are physically located near you so you have good ping to everybody else. So you’re able to have this great action experience that you’re used to in these action games. But at the same time you can do it in this global fashion.

We’re always storing data about how good your connection is to everybody else. We have all of this logic that’s going on about who’s got the fastest connections and therefore who the best person is to be coordinating the activity in that particular region.

It’s as if you’re the host right there. There’s a ton of technology that goes into it. When it works it feels like you’re playing a single player game because everything that’s being simulated near you is running on your local machine and there’s no lag and no latency or anything like that. But at the same time you’re in this world full of lots and lots of players.