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Destiny 2 Review

  • Developer: Bungie

  • Publishers: Activision

  • Genres: First-person shooter (FPS), RPG

  • Platforms: PS4, Xbox One, PC

  • Release date: 

    • Consoles: September 6th, 2017

    • PC: October 24th, 2017 

  • Playtime: Over 100 hours

  • Reviewed on PS4

  • Note: I am a returning player from Destiny 1 with over 600 hours of playtime

Destiny 2, as the name implies, is the sequel to 2014's controversial Destiny. After four expansions released in three years, Bungie released a full-fledged sequel, making this a reset on players progress and loot. Was it worth? Let's find out.

Destiny has always had its highs and lows: while the original game had tons of problems with its systems and gameplay loop, it managed to keep a dedicated player base throughout its first year. The beginning of the second year was marked by the release of The Taken King expansion, which corrected major issues the game had, bringing a wave of new and returning players. At the beginning of its third and last year was released the last expansion titled Rise of Iron which continued the trend of delivering quality content and satiating to a degree the players' thirst for content. Now, three years later, upon us is the release of a brand new game: Destiny 2. Whatever guns and gear players had earned for the past three years was all left behind, with only the players' characters physical appearances being brought forward, along with some cosmetic items to symbolize players accomplishments in the original game. In short, Bungie leveled the play field for both brand new and veteran players.

Now that you're somewhat familiar with the context of Destiny 2, let's move on to the proper review of the game. This time around, Bungie decided to tell a proper a narrative in the campaign, instead of taking the players through a vague story while hopping from planet to planet in the Solar System like in the original game. Here, the players start with a dramatic view: the Tower, which held strong for years protecting both Guardians and civils, is under attack by a race called the Cabal, namely their Red Legion. Its leader, Dominus Ghaul, comes in search of the Traveler, a being revered as a God that grants power to us Guardians, to claim it for himself and his legion, because he feels that he is worthier than us. Unfortunately, Ghaul succeeds in capturing the Traveler, rendering Guardians powerless and an easily disposable target. We lose this fight, and so begins our story: we are tasked with getting back our powers, find the Vanguard leaders and reorganize to take back our home from Ghaul. As it sounds, this story is nothing innovative, but it serves its purpose: to give the player the motivation needed to play through it, while at the same time introducing the world and its characters and, let me say, quite successfully.

Let's move on to the gameplay. If you've ever played Destiny or if you've heard someone talk about it, there's something no one ever criticized, in fact, it's revered as one of the best things in the game: the gunplay. Bungie absolutely nailed from the beginning the feeling of the gunplay, both in visual and audio feedback. The guns feel incredible to shoot, and along with it the general movement, from throwing grenades to punching enemies to, ultimately, unleashing your Super ability. In Destiny 2, thankfully, it remains the same. This sequel sees some changes to the weapon types available and weapon loadouts but believe me when I say it feels as good as it ever felt to play Destiny (2). As before, players are given three choices for what class to play with: the acrobatic and deadly Hunter, the bulky Titan, and, last but not least, the magic wielding Warlock. Whatever class you choose, all have the same fundamental abilities, just with some changes to quirks and usages: grenade, melee attack, class ability and Super ability. Beyond these, each class has three different subclasses (unlocked during the campaign), that give the player a choice to vary their playstyles and abilities depending on what subclass they are playing with (though these can be changed on the fly).

Next, I'd like to talk about the loot and the gameplay-loop. One of the things you probably heard the most related to Destiny is the loot and the grind aspect. Well, in Destiny 2 the loot is still good and is the main reason to make you keep coming back to raise your Power level (an average of your gear and weapons attack/defense values) and acquiring new weapons and gear. This time around, the gear rarity you can get from completing an activity is detailed on your map so you know what you can do next to "get stronger". Per week, you even have four main moments to acquire Powerful Gear, by completing end-game content. Beyond this, there's the Raid and the Trials of the Nine, the true end-game of PVE and PVP, respectively. This is what the core weekly gameplay consists of. However, while this can seem a lot of stuff to do at first, it truly isn't. Even if you're not a hardcore player, sooner or later you'll be able to hit the Power level cap or at least get close to it and, for example, after completing the Raid for the first time, you are not incentivized to do it again. The game doesn't really reward your experience in the game, sure, if you hit the Power cap you'll probably have an easier time in the game, but that's just it. Completing the Raid more than once is only worth it if you're trying to get the Raid-exclusive gear/weapons because you don't need to complete the raid to hit the Power cap. It almost turns into a matter of you yourself just ticking boxes instead of playing with a meaning of improving or working towards a goal. While this is better for more casual players who never got to experience certain aspects of Destiny 1, at the other end of the spectrum there's the super hardcore players who log insane hours into the game and want to have a goal or a meaning in the hours they spend in the game.

Visually, Destiny 2 looks beautiful. From the forest-y scenario found in the European Dead Zone in Earth to the rocky and red-ish foliage found in Nessus, the game looks stunning. For the audio, the game sounds amazing. The sound effects for the gunplay is incredibly good, the voice actors are able to bring their characters to life and make them feel like actual characters instead of lifeless 3D models and the soundtrack itself never lets up, creating at all times a sense of excitement and eagerness to keep playing. In general, the audio in this game is top-notch.

Destiny 2 is an improvement over the original Destiny, period. Though, the problem is exactly that: the game improves on 2014's Destiny, not 2016's Destiny: Rise of Iron. Destiny 2 does a great job of improving Destiny 1's clunky and dumb systems, but at the same time it creates other big problems. The freshness is great, but it doesn't last long: it's not long until you become numb to getting a new Legendary engram or getting a duplicate of the exact same weapon for the fiftieth time. Destiny 2 tries to appeal to the broader audience while at the same time appealing to the hardcore fans and, in that regard, it is not successful. There's a reason why fans continued playing Destiny 1 "at its worst" and I don't think Bungie found an alternative to it here. However, if there's something I want you to keep from this review it's this: Destiny 2, unlike its predecessor, feels like a complete package at launch, instead of feeling as a game that's created with paid expansions in mind. It feels like a game that sets clear objectives for the player but once these are completed there are no incentives to do it again, once you've done it once there's no need to do it again.

If you still want more of my Destiny 2 review, you can watch this gameplay I've recorded. It's me playing as the Hunter class through a harder version of a campaign mission on Nessus (these are touted as Meditations):

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