Destiny 2 Is The Game Destiny Was Meant To Be
Who would have ever thought a mobile game would end up on my list? As a big fan of the Hitman franchise since its second iteration, when it was announced that Square Enix Montreal would be working on a mobile game in the same universe, I was no doubt concerned. To my surprise, it ended up being one of the best games of the year. It takes the scenarios we’ve come to love in the full-fledged stealth games and creates bite-sized puzzles. There’s no game on my Nexus 5 that I played more of this year, trying to master each mission, while doing so with the least amount of turns or picking up the optional briefcase. While it’s not what I hope the series will move towards in the future, it is a nice side activity that will distract you for a couple minutes at a time.
It’s been nearly three years since Bungie and Activision first brought us into the world of Destiny . The 2014 first-person loot shooter with MMO-lite mechanics strived to be the next big thing, but was ultimately disappointing. A lack of content, a thrown together campaign and repetitive missions marred what was supposed to be the next big Activision IP. Though Bungie got their act together and released the stellar Taken King and OK Rise of Iron expansions, neither felt like the proper leap forward the franchise needed. Well, now we have Destiny 2, a new chance for Bungie to hit the reset button.
Love it or hate it, Destiny is addicting. It has some of the best first person shooting mechanics available, and while the campaign structure is limited, its drive for loot is exciting. Unfortunately, if players ignore the Raids all together they will be left with an unfortunate experience that’s marred by a virtually non-existent plot. Regardless, Destiny is a fun game to play with friends, having you dig through hours of dungeons and lengthy strikes. There’s a lot for Bungie to do (an actual story would be nice, more varied locations for missions and less repetitive mission tasks), but they have established something to build off of that will hopefully be expanded upon in future iterations.
It's a bit nerve-racking that lore, while mentioned, didn’t come up that much, other than story content. With such a serious overhaul to story, gameplay and the two combined, it’s odd that Bungie would leave out what they’ve done for Destiny lore access to the player base. They introduced a number of needed fixes (maps) and while these are already a drastic improvement to the core Destiny game, lore seems out of reach for the moment. It’s not to say that Bungie won’t talk about it later, but still. While not showcasing access to lore, it's most certainly there. For lore nerds like myself, Destiny 2 already looks to be a dream come true.
We think that a lot of players are going to be pretty surprised about how 4v4 changes the landscape. In terms of being on a big team in Destiny, that’s the Raid. The pinnacle activity in our game is all about being in a Fireteam of six and solving the biggest mysteries in the Slg Game Heroes together.
Hardcore Gamer went hands-on with the PS4 and PC versions of the upcoming game and if what we played is anything to go by, Bungie may have a real winner. While Destiny 2 may not change the minds of those opposed to loot shooter or MMO-lite mechanics, it will make those who were disappointed by the original game very happy. Destiny 2 is bigger, better structured and packs a more powerful punch.
Humanity isn’t the only thing occupying the wide-open galaxy; there are the other two races as well. The Exos are powered by the light and that seems to be a living source. Besides humanity fighting its war there are the Awoken and Exo, both related to humanity while not being human. Equally as important to the scope of it all. Without getting into the nitty-gritty of these two races, just know that Bungie does plan on telling their stories eventually. The other major tie in for these two races is all the other high sci-fantasy space stuff going on. Without getting into space dragons (because they exist), there are also things in this universe the Destiny community has yet to encounter, unless counting Xur. Which brings this to the Nine. The Nine have been a known part of Destiny since the game's release, but the only contact anyone has had with them is strictly through Xur, an agent of the Nine. With Destiny 2 taking us to Titan, players just might get closer than ever before to this elusive group of who knows what (hint space dragons). Doing some digging, it's known the Nine occupy either Europa, a moon of Jupiter, or Titan, one of the new locals in Destiny 2, a moon of Saturn.
Many familiar faces filled the screen as the hour of Destiny 2 played out, characters any player could recognize (Holiday did look slick flying that ship.) Destiny 2 means introducing new faces to the fold, folks that may have been there the whole time, but Guardians were to busy running around the galaxy to pay attention too. At least, that’s what I like to think. Getting down on the people's level though, actually coming down from their Tower, Guardians will hopefully see firsthand the struggles that the Last City had to go through on a daily basis. New places and new faces means new content. Guardians always had a pretentiousness about them. I enjoyed my Guardian, but it felt like we were all on a high horse policing the universe without a care for those we were actually supposed to be protecting. This isn’t a new concept, though, even having been written into the lore. It's known that children are told stories at night about Guardians to frighten them. Protectors or a something worse? Guardians are undead soldiers after all, Zavalas haunting speech while returning over and over again, shook me. My guardian has done this exact thing, but actually seeing the impact and hearing how twisted it sounded made me feel like one of the children that lives in the Last City.