Beneath it all is that server infrastructure. Destiny exists in a sort of global brain, one to which all players must have smooth access via their Xbox or PlayStation consoles. The game will launch with at least four explorable planets – each with many miles of intricately drawn landscapes. Players can get on jet-powered bikes and explore for hours, and they will. Bungie has a ridiculously dedicated fanbase. When Activision launched a beta demo of the game for two weeks this summer, more than 4.6 million players downloaded it. When that many people hit a server network at once, it can easily overload and start crashing. Much of the $500m has gone on ensuring that doesn't happen.
To get the network running, Bungie bought up a huge data centre in Las Vegas. "The interesting thing about Las Vegas is, you get a lot of natural disasters walking down up and down the strip, but you don't get a lot of true natural disasters affecting the landscape," says Parsons. "There are no earthquakes, no hurricanes, no floods – it's perfect." This facility then connects with various rented server centres worldwide, and with PlayStation and Xbox online infrastructures. "It is the largest engineering team we could imagine," says Jonty. "It's such a complex online infrastructure. We're well north of 100 engineers."