The campaign kicks off with a bang. Returning home to The Last City, you and your Ghost discover that the city has come under siege by the Cabal Empire’s Red Legion. Led by Dominus Gaul, the Legion successfully captures the Traveler, cutting off all Guardian’s connection to the Light. Without Light, you must become the rallying point for all surviving Guardians, re-unite the Vanguard and retake what Gaul has taken from you.
The Destiny 2 beta is showing positive things, but the cracks are easy to see for any veteran Destiny player and that’s nerve-racking. Destiny 2 should not just be a glossed-up Destiny with a fresh coat of paint, it needs to prove that it is the FPSMMO it always intended to be. When hiding things like the item menu from players, however, those feelings of unease just won’t go away.
At the end of the mission, we finally meet Ghaul, who is terrifying in his all-white armor and his Darth Malak-esque mask. He gives a great speech and welcomes us to a world without light, as he strips the Traveler of its power. He then promptly kicks your de-powered self off the edge of the Tower and the Destiny 2 logo fades in to end the Beta’s mission. I assume the next mission will take place within the city. But the first mission of Destiny 2 impressed and if they can keep that up with the rest of the campaign, it could be great.
Competitive multiplayer returns in the form of Crucible, which has gone click through the up coming website extensive tweaks. Gone are the 6v6 matches, replaced with 4v4 matches. While this is a curious choice, the player count works rather well in-game. All multiplayer maps have been designed with this number in mind and it’s easy to find firefights. Playing Crucible is also more rewarding with loot generously dropped and Crucible Reputation tokens after each match.
Well that didn’t take long. It’s only been about a month since Destiny 2 released and it’s already struggling to hold its players’ attention. Many are focusing on loot or the sheer lack of content as the cause, but the game’s real issues run a bit deeper. Having loot to grind for is all well and good, but it doesn’t amount to much when there’s not a whole lot one can actually do with it. The game’s economy has also undergone a very player-unfriendly change, one that encourages microtransactions and hoarding over fun and engagement. Even the moment-to-moment gameplay has suffered. What was once relatively fluid and fast-paced combat has become slow and laborious. As it stands, Destiny 2 meets the basic requirements necessary to be called a full and proper sequel rather than a glorified expansion, but falls into the category of unsatisfying sequel that “fixed” all of the wrong things.
With the Destiny 2 Beta in full swing now, there’s a lot to unpack. Many changes have been made from the first game, but much will be recognizable. While the Beta shouldn’t be taken as a done deal — they could still change things — it’s good to talk about the balance the team at Bungie has struck between the new and the old. And with many people unable to play the Beta, as access is limited to those with a pre-order, hopefully this preview will give you a good feel for where the game is at right now. The Beta comes with the first story mission, a strike, and two multiplayer game modes, and all have changes that we’ll get into right now.
As for the Crucible, it seems to be an uneven blending of old and new, and like any good shooter, will probably need a few matches under its belt to see where it stands. I was grouped with teams that either know shooters or know Destiny the first few matches tackled. My team dominating match after match, while hapless players threw themselves at our Guardian-trained reflexes. It almost didn’t seem fair, probably because the other teams weren’t making use of their powers and treating the Crucible like any other shooter. Jumping in on day two, however, was completely different. Being on the receiving end of the stick was just not fun. My team wandering off to play “team deathmatch” instead of the actual objective. At this point, it’s confusing when other players don’t know mechanics. Most games use the same objective-based gameplay with personal slight variations, but to see my team run to the meat grinder, completely away from the very thing we were supposed to be protecting, was disheartening. I had to quit while I was ahead. Not because the other players were bad, they just didn’t seem to care.
After that first mission, though, players are immediately ejected to space, where a limited number of things to do sits in a classic Destiny menu. Like, what? I can’t even land on a planet and just wander around? With nowhere else to go, it’s either hop in the Strike or hop in the Crucible.
“Outside of the Prismatic Matrix, players may continue to earn Bright Engrams each time they level up, and they can still purchase these engrams if they want a chance to get everything from the Season 3 catalog. Additionally, we’re increasing the number of items available from Tess each week with Bright Dust, from 14 to 18 items.