X-Men: Destiny puts players in the shoes of a brand-new mutant, one of three original characters, as San Francisco’s human and mutant populations collide. The game asks players to pick sides — X-Men or Brotherhood of Mutants — and let their choices shape who fights beside them and who stands against them. It sounds like a bold plan. It lands somewhere short of that.
Trailer, via GameSpot.
The Three New Mutants
Players choose between Aimi Yoshida, Adrian Luca, or Grant Alexander, each with a distinct background and a voice actor attached:
| Character | Voice Actor |
|---|---|
| Aimi Yoshida | Jamie Chung |
| Adrian Luca | Scott Porter |
| Grant Alexander | Milo Ventimiglia |
Aimi is the daughter of Sunfire, sent to San Francisco under the X-Men’s protection to escape Japan’s growing anti-mutant campaign. Adrian is the son of a dead Purifiers leader, raised to believe mutants are evil. Grant is a UC Berkeley football player from Georgia who is dragged into mutant affairs by his friends looking for a supposed “mutant growth hormone.” Each path feeds into the larger story about a city split between humans and mutants.
The choices matter on paper. In practice, the game leans heavily on scripted scenes and set pieces rather than letting those choices change the world around the player.
The Peace Rally Attack
The story opens at a peace rally held in memory of the recently deceased Professor X. The rally brings together mutants and humans alike, but the mood is uneasy from the start. The attack comes fast: the Purifiers, an anti-mutant extremist group, arrive and begin abducting mutants rather than killing them. That switch in method sets the whole plot in motion.
The player’s latent powers awaken during the chaos, and they are forced to fight back to protect the civilians caught in the middle. From there, the path winds through encounters with both the X-Men and the Brotherhood of Mutants. The story is built around a branching structure, but the branches often feel thin. Decisions made early in the game rarely ripple outward in visible ways later on.
X-Genes and the Choices System
The combat system mixes hack-and-slash action with role-playing elements. Players collect power enhancements called X-Genes, each unlocking three types of abilities: offensive, defensive, and utility. X-Genes can be mixed and matched freely, which is meant to offer a unique experience for each player.
That flexibility is the game’s strongest idea. It is also the idea that gets buried beneath the game’s repetitive structure. Most missions play out the same way: move forward, fight waves of enemies, trigger a boss encounter, repeat.
Pre-Order Bonuses
Some retailers packaged the game with exclusive bonuses tied to specific stores. Amazon.com pre-orders came with an early unlock code for Emma Frost’s outfit and X-Genes. Best Buy offered Juggernaut’s costume and X-Genes. GameStop’s customers got Havok’s suit and X-Genes.
The Recall and Its End
X-Men: Destiny was de-listed and removed from all digital storefronts on January 1, 2014. Along with Too Human, it was recalled and its unsold copies destroyed due to legal issues between Silicon Knights and Epic Games over the use of Unreal Engine 3 code. The recall ended the game’s availability on digital stores.
The game’s fate is tied to the wider collapse of the studio that made it. It is a footnote in the history of Silicon Knights, not a major entry in the history of the X-Men franchise.
A Story With Few Branches
The game’s greatest weakness is its lack of depth. The branching storyline is advertised as a core feature, but the actual choices available to players are limited. Most decisions feel like cosmetic changes rather than structural ones. The game tells a standard superhero story — villains kidnap, heroes fight back, alliances shift — and the choices only dress that story in different colors.
The combat is competent but unremarkable. Enemies fall the same way every time, and the mix of abilities from the X-Gene system rarely feels like it opens up genuine tactical options. The game runs on a simple formula: move forward, hit things, watch the next scene load.
A Short Career
X-Men: Destiny ran for a brief period before its recall. It appeared on four platforms — PlayStation 3, Wii, Xbox 360, and Nintendo DS — and sold enough copies to support a pre-order bonus program. Then it vanished entirely from digital stores.
| Event | Date |
|---|---|
| De-listing | January 1, 2014 |
| Recall and destruction of unsold copies | Followed shortly after the announcement |
The game’s career lasted less than three years. That is a short life for a product from a major publisher, especially one carrying a Marvel license.
Our Verdict
X-Men: Destiny tries to be a game about choice and consequence. It falls short of that ambition. The combat is solid but shallow, the story is standard-issue superhero fare, and the branching structure mostly serves as window dressing. The game’s best idea — the mix-and-match X-Gene system — is buried under a design that prefers repetition to variety.
The game is not broken. It is merely thin. There is enough here for a few hours of entertainment, but little that stays with the player beyond the credits.
Get the Notebook.
The day's best stories and every fresh verdict, in plain English, in your inbox by seven. One email a day, no more.
