Easily one of the most hyped games for this year is Activision’s Destiny, which was developed by the team at Bungie, the same crew that created Microsoft’s mammothly successful Halo franchise. Activision has put a reasonable amount of hype behind the game, investing more than $500 million in marketing and making a surefire bet that the franchise will be as successful as Call of Duty, if not more so.

So far, the hype is paying off, as Destiny has the highest amount of pre-orders for a new property in some time, surpassing even some of the company’s previous hits in the Call of Duty line-up. Throw in a lavish marketing campaign with a live-action trailer and pre-order incentives, and you have a game that simply cannot miss.

It’s been a long build-up with Destiny‘s hype. In fact, the initial reveal for the game took place back in February 2013, when Bungie revealed a behind-the-scenes demonstration of what it was working on.

Since then, bits and pieces of information leaked out to indicate that Bungie meant business when it came to the development of the game, from the involvement of former Beatle Paul McCartney working on the soundtrack to heralded actor Peter Dinklage joining the cast as one of the key characters, a secondary robot named Ghost.

After that, Activision has continued hyping the game with elaborate pre-order campaigns (which actually launched a year and a half before Destiny‘s release), an exclusive PlayStation 4 system bundle that features a white console and controller, pre-loading programs for both the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, and plenty of revealing trailers with new information about the game, from its huge multiplayer capacity to its enthralling single-player content.

It’s easily one of the biggest advertising campaigns put into a video game, especially a new franchise that is just now getting its feet wet. However, it appears to be paying off, as the game could easily sell a million copies – or more – within the first 24 hours alone, and continue stretching onward into the holiday season as one of its “must-have” titles.

Destiny can be picked up now for PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Xbox 360. For a little extra fun, here’s that awesome live-action trailer again, directed by Tron Legacy‘s Joseph Kosinski.