Destiny 2: My Thoughts

By: Joe

When Destiny dropped way back in September of 2014, I had already spent a large amount of time playing the betas, designing my character over and over again, (Exo Titan FTW!), and reading up on any little clue that might shed some light (pun intended) on what the story was going to be like. Hell, I even made a custom shirt showing my Titan pride and my Clan Tag for the midnight release. I had all the pre-order codes, drank so much Red Bull I should have died, and spent waaaaaay too much time in the Bungie forums. Needless to say, I was a true Day-One player. And this is why I have such strong feelings about Destiny 2.

Destiny vanilla was, for lack of a better word: boring. Once you ran the strikes and patrolled a few times, it got very repetitive. Then the raid happened, and it brought new life to an otherwise dry experience. Again though, once the luster of killing Atheon wore off, it was time for other games until “The Dark Below” and “House of Wolves” released. Then “The Taken King” came out and it was like a whole new game! What I’m trying to get at here, is that Destiny 2, from the 5 hours I’ve put into it (I know, I know, 5 hours?!?) seems like a glorified expansion. A really good expansion, but expansion nonetheless.

Here are 3 reasons I feel this way:

1. The gunplay isn’t quite the same, (this being the one thing that kept me coming back to Destiny), because the mechanics have changed a bit with the whole Power, Kinetic, and Elemental slots. This isn’t necessarily a good change in my humble opinion. Things worked very well in the original Destiny, so why change them at all? Simply to say you changed something?
2. A “story” is present this time around, and from what I have played so far, I am definitely not impressed. It almost makes me miss the Grimoire and that’s a bad thing. Knowing what I know about the “behind the scenes” of Destiny, it makes it hard to be immersed in this world of sci-fi space magic in Destiny 2. Bungie admitting they didn’t even know what the Darkness was prior to the release of Destiny 2 was a huge mistake in my opinion.
3. Re-used assets. No new enemies. No new enemies. No new enemies. The Cabal having a few new enemy types doesn’t count either. A dog and a flamethrower are not game changing enough to be considered “new”.

Then again, these are just my thoughts from what I have played. I am in no way bashing Destiny 2, it’s more disappointment in the way they presented this game. This would have made a PHENOMINAL expansion that I would have loved to have taken my year 1 character through. The fact that nothing carries over and there are no good reasons why my gear from year 3 doesn’t carry over, (even just what was on my character at the time of the “event” would have sufficed), and the fact that weapons are being carried over in the form of “new-old” exotics baffles me. This is more of a cash grab than fan service in my eyes.

Those are my thoughts, be sure to let me know how you feel by contacting me via Facebook or Twitter.