Bungie says it's an unfortunate reality, but it had to be done. The 4.6 million hero characters, known as Guardians, that gamers made and played as during the Destiny beta are gone forever. All beta characters, including those created by Bungie staff members themselves, have been deleted and will not transfer to Destiny's final build.

The hard work players put into lovingly cobbling together their Guardians' appearances and abilities, and then spent hours leveling up, had to go. Bungie didn't erase all those Guardians merely to reset the game for the final release in September, which would be a legitimate reason. The developers at Bungie know that Beta players will be disappointed, but they simply had no choice.

As Bungie designer Tyson Green explains in the latest Bungie Weekly Update:

"Since the Beta, we've continued to tune and adjust the game. The way you earn experience has been adjusted up and down a bunch of times. Items have been added and removed. New features toggled. Although there's no single monumental change, the sum of the tweaks leaves characters from the Beta Build in strange shape that would be confusing at best, broken at worst."

Bungie's staff members have reportedly had to delete their own Guardians "countless times" over the years it's taken to create Destiny. Many of their characters had grown and progressed far beyond any level beta players could have had time for. They fully expect beta gamers to be disappointed, but want to assure players that their efforts during the beta were not in vain. The beta was always meant to be a test of Bungie's systems and gameplay, not an early entry to the game.

In addition to purging all Guardians from the servers, all vaults have also been wiped clean. In the same Weekly Update, Bungie promises that this is the last time players will have to part with their Guardians. If the comments made on Bungie's blog post are any indication, most players appear to be taking the news in stride.

Meanwhile, Bungie's staff is headed to Gamescom this week, where Destiny will be on display and available to play. Gamescom is one of the few video game conventions open to the general public. After an industry-only day on Wednesday, August 13, 2014, the show opens to all on Thursday the 14th through Sunday the 17th. Gamescom takes place at the Koelnmesse Convention Center in Cologne, Germany.