Destiny 2: Righting the Wrongs of the Father?

So Destiny has a few fans doesn’t it? I suppose I found that out the hard way with my Destiny 1 reflection. From this, I still maintain that Destiny 1 had many issues, and that Destiny 2 needed to address them or it would not be received well. Did Destiny 2 correct the sins of its predecessor and deliver a true MMO lite experience?

The First Five

Destiny 2 is in some ways a very ambitious game and in some other ways not very ambitious at all. This first-person shooter tries to refine the “shared world” concept from its predecessor into something a little more solid, and succeeds, in my opinion. At the same time, it’s literally just what Destiny 1 did except in new locations with more engaging (and numerous, and rewarding) activities to take part of in the patrol zones. Most of the time, despite the dynamic nature of even single player, numerous events and effects happening on screen at once and sheer scale at times, most of the game goes off without a hitch.

There are occasional glitches though, and some can be pretty serious. On the lighter end of the spectrum, lag is a problem here as with most shooters. Most of the time, the lag is not noticeable if you don’t know what to look for. Destiny 2 deals with normal lag by registering attacks milliseconds after the occur from the perspective of the attacker. The result can feel frustrating, as you’ll get killed by that last shot when you were certain you were behind cover. I’ve seen it work both ways, however, as I’ve been both killed at the mercy of the lag or found it to work to my advantage and become the killer.

There is of course, more serious lag in which a player seemingly randomly teleports around the map. Luckily, those are few and far between.

In the first few days I experienced random disconnects that had nothing to do with my internet. However, this is hopefully a one off as this was more than likely due to the surge in people playing this recent release. My brother, who played with me all throughout my review playthrough, experienced a glitch that resulted in him not being able to acquire the Coldheart he was guaranteed by preordering.

Overall, Destiny 2 does its job for the most part, with occasional hiccups.

Graphics

Destiny 2 is a very aesthetically pleasing game to look at, but doesn’t have a “unique” art-style. As it eschews more toward the “realism” front, I will judge it more on those standards, and yes it does look quite nice, even on my Xbox One S. It does not, however, push the hardware to its limits. It runs at 1080p, 30FPS which is honestly an active detriment in the shooter environment. It’s true that Destiny 2 has open-ish worlds (really a collection of arenas separated by load screens disguised as narrow paths) and that there is typically a lot happening on screen at once, but this is not pushing any boundaries. There’s nothing wrong with it, but assigning a full point for “good” graphics would leave me at a loss when “great” comes along.

Story

Destiny 2 has a story! Already on the right track compared to its predecessor, this game’s story is an emotional tale about an entire city full of people getting their way of life violently stolen from them, and desperately struggling to survive and claw their way back. Also unlike the first game, Destiny 2 has a clear, ambitious villain with a stated motive and even a backstory (!) that adds depth to his character (!). No spoilers, but Destiny 2’s campaign is a good story in its own right, punctuated by fun and interesting levels that reward the player with gear that is sometimes useful even in the endgame. It’s a little on the short side though. I’ll be generous and say my playtime was maybe five hours. Some might say “what game isn’t?” That’s a good point, but for a game this highly anticipated, a meager 5 hours is somewhat disappointing.

Value

Destiny 2 was announced with a season pass that will apparently release some of its content as early as December, but I will be judging only the $60 package. For the asking price you get the aforementioned 5 ish hour campaign, at least 3 different strikes, (I’ve only played 3 different ones so far, but I’ve done 8 strikes including 2 Nightfalls); at least 6 different multiplayer modes in two playlists; (Clash, Supremacy and Control are in Quickplay, Countdown and Survival are in competitive and I believe Trials of the Nine is its own entity). I have seen 6 different maps so far, but do not quote me on that. The Leviathan raid has just been released, and while I haven’t gotten a chance to play it yet, I know that there are hours of raiding ahead of me.

There’s also public events, patrols, adventures and post story exotic quests which leads me to the glue that holds it all together: THE LOOT. There is just so much gear to collect and customize your character with, both image and playstyle. I currently have so many exotics I don’t even know what to do with them, plenty of legendary gear and hordes of rare gear. All in all, the content here in the base game would be fine except: Eververse is back.

For those who don’t know, Tess Everis is a vendor from the first game’s Taken King expansion who accepts real world money in exchange for in game currency. Yep, that’s right, microtransactions. Ugh. They’re not exactly pay to win as they’re mostly cosmetic stuff… mostly. You can still get decent mods and gear (just at a very low power level) by spending “Silver” at her kiosk. But more importantly, it’s there, and it should not be. The microtransaction system adds nothing to this game and even detracted from an aspect that was perfectly acceptable in the first game (the shaders are single use now and can be acquired at random via silver). I’m sure it’s more Activision’s fault than Bungie’s, but it happened, and so I account for it in the score.

Gameplay: PVE

Here we go. The fundamental aspect of a game. How does it play? The answer is: fine, for the most part. The controls feel as tight as ever, rarely do I feel as if a button is placed in an unintuitive location. As mentioned before, the campaign is a short but very sweet blast to play through, and most PVE content just feels good to play, at least early on. Grenades and melee attacks are drastically more lethal than they were in the Beta, and they recharge at a decent rate as well, making me feel like I am usually not totally without options, even when surrounded. Power ammo drops much more frequently now too, so players are typically one yellow bar kill away from being able to clear a room. The strikes feel dynamic now, with objectives more varied than “go here and kill all the things until you reach the big thing then kill that too.” The Nightfall strikes require skill and coordination on the part of the entire fireteam, and the exotic quests are challenging, but obviously quite rewarding.

Gameplay: PVP

PVP is… not as fun. It isn’t “bad” per se, but questionable decisions in terms of design have led to a meta that is highly defensive. Abilities do not recharge on spawn, and even with a slight upgrade to recharge times still feel a tad slow. This would be fine if they felt lethal as in PVE but alas, it is not so. At least for a titan, uncharged melees are a 3 shot kill, and charged melees are no less than 2. The titans have zero grenades that kill a target at full shields (baring the target doing something stupid like standing in front of a lighting grenade for a full five seconds). Guns do pitiful damage on body shots and decent damage on headshots. Power ammo drops near default spawns in most game types, except in competitive modes where one spawns toward the center of the map. Barring that last one, these gameplay aspects are universal, regardless of gametype.

The result is that the game heavily supports a defensive playstyle, far different from the ability/shotgun multikill fests of Destiny 1. I’ll be the first to say that despite my issues with D1’s multiplayer, I would charge headlong into battle and punish teams that grouped together by killing several of them. The game would reward this by spawning the dead guardians elsewhere on the map, so that they can’t kill me before I can recover. Destiny 2 on the other hand, rewards the grouping tactic by rapidly respawning them near their still living teammates.

Early on, I literally felt as if the other team outnumbered me, as within 10 seconds I could kill 3 people (with help of course) but turn around and be jumped by 3 people. Destiny 2’s multiplayer is 4V4. I started to realize that it’s actually a combination of short spawn times, small map design, and the fact that the game tends toward spawning players near their teammates. Were one of these things not present, the issue would be drastically less noticeable. I suppose in Countdown (haven’t tried Trials yet, sorry) the issue is not present because there are no spawns at all, but the meta is still highly defensive. The game does not want one or two guys to be superstars on a team. They want everyone working together, and it shows. Kills are reward to everyone who damaged the opponent, not just whoever finished them.

An Aside

Also, everyone uses MIDA Multi-Tool again. That gun was not the most OP gun in D1, but it’s always been known to be very good. Now that it can be acquired through a relatively easy quest (along with the synergistic MIDA Mini-Tool Submachinegun) most of the people who play the game will have one. There may be better guns in the game, but I doubt they have the combination of utility and ease of acquiring that the Multi-Tool does. Now, I don’t suck. My KD is 1.68 as of now which isn’t amazing but also not terrible. These are legitimate complaints that most players will face.

All in all, PVE feels great to play. No complaints there. PVP needs some work I think. Defensive metas are generally considered less fun in supposedly competitive games and I’m definitely getting that vibe in this one.

The Verdict

Overall: Destiny 2 is a very enjoyable game to play. A lot of the bigger problems from the first game were fixed… but may have been replaced with new ones. Time will tell if those problems are eliminated post haste or ultimately stick with the game. Microtransactions need to be killed, buried and forgotten.