So I finally made the jump to PS4 with Horizon Zero Dawn releasing soon, and I was thinking about getting into missed console exclusives I've been wanting to check out, so if I buy OG destiny for like 10 bucks from amazon can I play and level up and not miss out on much in the way of not having the xpacs? and when I hit the cap just buy things from there or is that going to end up costing me stupid amounts more?

Thanks

Its probably cheaper to buy the full bundle than buying all the addons for the base game at this point.

Ok thanks, that makes sense I think you can get it on amazon for around 35 but I'm about to be waste deep with sweet console exclusive gaming options

Yeah cheaper to go with the bundle, and the add on are basically necessary at this point. You can still play the single player story (not that great) with just the base game, but you would be locked out of the vast majority of what everyone else is actually playing in Destiny, and end up paying more to get it.

I don't know that I'd recommend Destiny at all right now. The game has been all but abandoned by both the majority of the playerbase and the developers themselves. Everyone is looking towards Destiny 2 at this point, which will come out this fall.

That isn't to say it's not worth playing, there's certainly stuff worth seeing, but that crucial social element that comes with playing a persistent multiplayer game is not exactly at the peak right now. Still, if that isn't a concern and you just wanted to see what Destiny has to offer, I'd definitely caution against playing vanilla.

The only thing that saved vanilla Destiny from being a total disaster was the social aspect and the amazing Vault of Glass raid. There have been 3 raids released since Vault of Glass, all part of various expansions. Anyone still playing Destiny is playing the current content, so the social aspect won't be a factor if you just own vanilla. Without a relevant raid and an engaged community, vanilla Destiny is essentially a series of bland missions with a barebones and poorly told story to go along with fantastic FPS gameplay.

The only way to play Destiny and really get anything out of it is to have the full collection.

In two words, heeeeell no. It would not be a good experience without all add-on content. Belive you can get it for under 30 bucks now though.

Yeah, I think you've missed the Destiny train. The base game would just be the terrible grinding part, and you wouldn't be able to find any other players to matchmake with for the strikes. You wouldn't get to the level cap and you wouldn't be able to take part in the one raid that people might still be running. The one thing you'd be able to do is maybe the multiplayer playlists where they balance the levels out, but to be honest if you're just looking for a multiplayer shooter there are plenty of better alternatives.

Get The Last Of Us. It's pretty much the best game of the last generation. It gives most of the current generation a run for their money, too.

Like many have already said, right now is a pretty terrible time to just start getting into Destiny. I would honestly wait for Destiny 2 at this point if I was new to the series. And my advice, at that of several others here like Exile comes from people who love Destiny and have put thousands of hours into it. Without the social aspect, which is at it's absolutes lowest in Destiny history, it just isn't worth playing right now.

@sweep: I disagree so much with all of this.

I picked up Destiny about 3 months ago and the community is still thriving. Never had an issue finding a raid group or people to complete exotic quests with. Strike matchmaking takes less than 3mins for me. Hell, I still see under lv40 kinderguardians running around Earth.

Also started playing through the "HD" version of The Last of Us last week so it's very fresh on my mind and boy, that game did not age well. It's by no means giving any current gen game a run for it's money. Hell even Destiny, a game that spanned both the PS3 and PS4, looks better in almost every way (except faces).

@enigma777: While there are still people playing, it is by far the fewest players Destiny has ever seen. As of right now, there are only 5 LFG posts for PS4 for Destiny. On a reset a few months ago, there were 10 posts for each checkpoint of the Raid, and 25 posts asking for fresh runs alone. 3 of those 5 posts today were for Nightfalls looking for Icebreaker, which makes sense seeing how it's the only Sniper in Destiny right now that actually has ammo in PvP. Right now is an extremely bad time to jump into Destiny. The PvP community, the thing that has kept it going for the past couple years in content droughts is simply enraged at the balance update, and many aren't playing as a result. In PvE, several of the most viable builds are completely broken from said patch such as Voidwalker. So until Bungie gets around to fixing (they have talked about a few fixes for the health regen perks bugs, but those don't fix everything) what they broke last week, I don't see those players coming back right now either. With Destiny broken on such a fundamental PvE and PvP level right now, I couldn't in good conscience recommend it to someone, especially since that comes coupled with the lowest population numbers to date. Destiny isn't the Destiny we all grew to love right now, and until Bungie gets off their high horse, it won't be.

As far as The Last of Us goes, you are going to have a hard time convincing me that it isn't one of the top 5 games on PS4, considering it's probably my all time favorite game. But I'm a bit of a Naughty Dog homer since the first Uncharted, you know, before it was cool. But in that frame of mind I would also recommend The Uncharted Collection and Uncharted 4 if someone had somehow missed those games. Also, Bloodborne if you like Dark Souls games, and Infamous Second Son is decent if you liked the first 2. I haven't played Rachet and Clank or Until Dawn, but I hear good things about those as well. For the most part though, this generation has been about 3rd parties, and those are the games that have shined. PS4 and XOne exclusives have been slim and for the most part pretty poor.

Without the additional content vanilla Destiny is a waste of your time.

Not really. About as playable as the base version of any MMO-type thing is after 4 expansion packs

Short answer:

It's not worth getting Destiny without the various DLC's. Don't even think about it, it would be a mistake.

Longer answer:

You can still get into Destiny (with all DLC) and play continuously, but you've missed the golden days. That means when you're looking for a raid, everyone except you will likely already know what to do. When you're looking to do PvP, you're likely going to get squashed and have to learn a years worth of nuance that players have built in a short amount of time. If you think of responding to me by saying you're not interesting in doing either of those, then Destiny isn't your game. The singleplayer side of it is not what it was built for. That said, you can search and look for other new players or find sherpa-groups that are still active.

It is without a doubt the worst time to get into Destiny, but it's not as catastrophic as it being unplayable at all. You do need (want) to team up with some people though, if you can make that happen, you're good.

I got into Destiny after The Taken King expansion. I played all the single player stuff, and never did a raid.

I can safely say that it is a great game. I enjoyed it immensely without engaging with the social aspect of it and will thoroughly recommend it.

As others have said, you may as well got the complete collection as it is pretty cheap now.

I'd jump in before Destiny 2 comes along, as then there really will be next to nobody playing the first one.

Base-game Destiny as well as all of the Taken King content is worth playing. Go through all that story stuff, then grind Strikes. It's a great "podcast game." It was my go-to for semi-mindless but still strategic-feeling shooting. I got bored with it after a year and now I'm grinding out the Halo campaigns again for the same purpose.