Destiny 2

During its first years, Destiny produced mixed emotions of delight and frustration for Guardians. Bungie crafted a universe full of mysticism, lore, beautiful skyboxes, exotic environments, and impactful gunplay but left players craving better exposition for story missions and better rewards for their time. Bungie learned from their mistake by structuring each story mission in their first expansion, The Taken King, with actual cutscenes and story exposition. Bungie also added diverse gameplay mechanics, modifiers to strikes, more gameplay content, and hidden exotic quests for weapons. After the third year of constant updates to Destiny, the future shone bright for further iterations of the franchise.

Bungie caused a stir of controversy among their fandom when announcing their weapons and armor from Destiny 1 would not carry over to the sequel. Only your hero's facial model is carried over. Your achievements in completing major story milestones are highlighted through artist renditions when loading the sequel for the first time. Along the small tributes to your legend comes different voiceovers and a special emblem nudging your Guardian’s side that Bungie remembers your accomplishments from the first game. It's a small consolation for the hours put in the initial game. Bungie wants to provide players with a fresh experience for not only new players, but for their loyal fans.

The first few missions after encountering the main threat accomplishes just that. With the somber sounds of violin and the slow crawl of your character, players will finally experience emotional storytelling. Bungie never before managed to tug those heartstrings with Destiny. Your character will trudge through the remnants of what you failed to protect. Not only players feel trauma, but it raises the enemy as a bigger threat unlike the adversities you faced in Destiny. It drives character and player motivation for vengeance. Your failures with the emotional overture delivered that new experience that Destiny veterans wanted. Mix that with the developer’s artistic environmental design, Bungie manages to achieve masterful exposition in the first 30 minutes of the game.

But what went wrong?

Not soon after, Bungie undoes their accomplishments by injecting unfunny comedy in a generic plot diminishing the theme of loss. Rather than continue from their success from the expansions, Destiny 2 subtracts. The emotional sense of defeat is immediately pushed aside for laughs. The lackluster humor weakens the tone from the first missions and causes most of the characters of Destiny to become caricatures of themselves. For instance, Nathan Fillion’s character, Cayde-6, was once a serious trickster who went against his faction's orders to fight the threat. He provided the much needed change of tone in the Taken King expansion when bouncing off Eris Morn's somber warnings. Bungie flanderizes his character into a lovable rogue making light of the dangers in Destiny 2. In Destiny 2, Cayde-6 stumbles upon a portal while cracking jokes about enemies, the environment, and his own predicament. This destroys the immersion of wonder in Destiny. If your superiors aren’t taking the threat seriously, then why should the player?

Another example that kills the atmosphere stems from your A.I. Companion, Ghost. Your character is not voiced. Ghost, voiced by Nolan North, responds for you through cringe worthy dialogue. In Destiny 1, Ghost served as a supplement to storytelling. He added to the immersion by telling you the history of the universe and questioned your resolve to carry on a massive task. Now Ghost spits juvenile dialogue throughout the game. Instead of focusing on the task at hand, Ghost will view out in the distance gushing over the environment rather than enhance the story. The feeling of vengeance with forceful jokes creates awful dissonance within the tone, storytelling, and flow in Destiny 2.

The writers wrote a mess that leaves both new players and veterans unsatisfied. The game tells new players of enemy motives and history in two to three narrated sentences whereas in Destiny 1, players spent hours uncovering that information in the campaign. Players who wish to learn more about the enemies or the universe have no in-game bestiary or codex to read. Bungie did away with its online Grimoire Cards, leaving all players left to watch lore videos on YouTube and third party sites.

The storytelling in Destiny 2 is not the only issue with the game. Destiny 2 fails to provide any meaningful changes to evolve the original game. Destiny 2 brings new strikes, lore-rich adventures, and a new raid reflecting Bungie’s decision to create a new experience. But, Destiny 2 removes worlds, strikes, and raids previous players ventured throughout in Destiny 1. The sequel does improve with slight improvements with the removal of sprint cooldowns, new class abilities, better platforming, and fast traveling. Small improvements do not give reasons for a sequel. None of these enhancements justifies the changes to Destiny 1 in terms of the player’s loadout, fixed gun perks, unlocked perks on gear, increased ability cooldowns, decreased movement speed, and increased “time to kill”. Unfortunately, Destiny 2 undoes all the improvements that led to Destiny’s eventual triumph.

With the removal of key RPG elements like leveling your weapons and armors to enable perks, the game prioritize shooting. Bungie’s forte is to make guns feel powerful with the recoil animation, impactful sound design, and killer bullet penetration. Guns continue to recoil backwards unleashing a wrath of bullets scattering bodies across the environment. Although the guns feel good, the overall gunplay in Destiny 2 is lacking compared to its predecessor.

Destiny provides a wide assortment of powerful guns to its players. However, Destiny 2 only provides the illusion of choice. In Destiny 1, players are able to grind for specific perks on a gun, thus enabling replayability and multiple variations of one gun. In Destiny 1, guns with the Outlaw and Firefly perk provided that powerfulness when landing precision kills. The perks increased your reload speed and caused your target to explode damaging enemies in close proximity. In Destiny 2, you cannot grind for a specific combination of perks due to predetermined rolls. For example, The Destiny 2 scout rifle, Nameless Midnight has the Explosive Payload perk. Like Firefly, it shoots explosive rounds causing damage to enemies in close proximity. Nameless Midnight is the most used PvE scout rifle in Destiny 2 because unlike Destiny 1, few guns have that perk. Instead of having variety of different guns to choose from, everyone is using similar loadouts. Predetermined rolls would be fine for the average player as all guns feel strong, but it creates an illusion of choice between many lackluster guns compared to Destiny 1.

Exotic weapons are an afterthought in Destiny 2. Exotic weapons in Destiny 1 added towards to its power fantasy. In the first game, Destiny was made famous by the Gjallarhorn, an exotic rocket launcher firing a round of rocket clusters that homed towards enemies. Many players grinded hours for the rocket launcher because it was powerful. The weapon made headlines on major gaming publication showing how important Exotic weapons were to Destiny’s power fantasy. Exotic weapons was on a different playing field compared to the other guns. In Destiny 2, Exotic weapons are on the same wavelength with Legendary weapon despite the difference in tier. One of the best Exotic weapons in Destiny 2, Sunshot, is rewarded in the beginning of the game. The Sunshot hand cannon is impressive in the scope of Destiny 2 because of the Sunburn perk, which is similar to the Firefly perk. Equipping the Sunshot is not a necessity like equipping a Exotic in Destiny 1 because it is an outlier among the subpar guns in Destiny 2. Bungie's decision to remove the grind for specific perks decreases the effectiveness of all predetermined guns, including Exotic Weapons.

Another way Bungie ruined the structure of Destiny is by changing the player's loadout. Instead of a Primary, Special, and Heavy weapon like in Destiny 1, Destiny 2 changes the loadout with Kinetic, Elemental, and Power weapons. Auto rifles, scout rifles, sidearms, pulse rifles, and hand cannons continue to be in the first slot. In Destiny 2, all the weapons in the first slot are also in the second Elemental slot. Special weapons from Destiny 1 such as shotguns, sniper rifles, and fusion rifles are now in the same slot of the rocket launcher and the new grenade launcher. A player in Destiny 1 had a variety of ways to play where they can equip a scout rifle for ranged attacks while equipping a shotgun for close encounters. Players could then equip a rocket launcher or light machine gun to deal massive damage a single target. But in Destiny 2, players will have two primary weapons and heavy weapon. Most players will choose the rocket launcher over the weaker weapons because the rocket launcher is effective in both close and long range. This reduces use of the shotgun, fusion rifles, and sniper rifles reinforcing the illusion of choice.

The new player loadout effects the strategies used in PvP. PvP now feels completely different from the first game. PvP is now 4v4 opposed to the 6v6 in Destiny 1. Instead of the potential to carry your team, you have to coordinate with your fireteam with squad based tactics. Due to the inability to reroll weapons with certain perks, PvP has a particular set amount of weapons everyone plays making the overall experience dull. The old Halo strategy no longer works in Destiny 2. Shotgun with a follow up melee attack or headshot sniping is rarely used in the game since shotguns and sniper rifles are in the same rocket launcher slot. Without the use of a rocket launcher or your Super ability, Players are not powerful enough to win 1v3 encounters. Bungie also increased the time to kill and ability cooldowns affecting how quickly you can kill. Grenades are not quite as powerful as before where in Destiny 2, grenades can barely take down shields. You are less powerful as an individual and more lethal as a team. Solo players are at a disadvantage when playing against an opposing full fireteam. All in all, the new loadout, predetermined perk system, increased time to kill, and changes to the player's power structure creates a different PvP experience.

Bungie’s goal for these changes was to create balance. Balance reduces toxicity and increases accessibility to all players. Destiny 2 lacks matchmaking in the endgame content leaving solo players to go on third party sites to find a group to complete the Raid and Weekly Nightfall Strike. Per request, solo players needed to fulfill a specific requirement for the endgame content like equipping the Gjallarhorn. This creates a toxic environment preventing players to play the game. Bungie sought to create a welcoming game for all players. Thus, changes to the power fantasy of Destiny 2 was needed. Although Bungie succeeds in creating a level playing field for both new and veteran players, Destiny 2 feels underwhelming compared to Destiny 1.

After completing the campaign lies the endgame. Enemies do not pose a threat compared to you with no ways of increasing difficulty enemy A.I. Those craving a challenge will play the Nightfall Strike, a specific strike updated weekly with increased difficulty, and the Leviathan Raid.

Weekly Nightfall Strikes add difficulty modifiers to freshen up the gameplay. For example, the Prism Modifier switches an element's effectiveness against both enemies and players. In the Nightfall, enemies have more health and tact to fire at will leaving players to be smart with their play. The Nightfall in Destiny 2 also adds a timer encouraging quick and efficient play. Failing to beat the Nightfall Strike before the timer reaches zero brings the fireteam back to orbit.

The other endgame content lies within the Leviathan Raid. Like Destiny 1, Raids incorporates technical skill, fireteam coordination, and puzzle solving. Players will have to play differently than the main game. Class builds plays an important role when tackling different mechanics in the Raid. Destiny 2 uses a new revive token system in order to resurrect a downed player. If the fireteam exhausts all their revive tokens, they fail that portion of the Raid. The new revive system is controversial. On one hand it provides an incentive for individuals to play seriously. On the other hand, it removes the heroic aspect of one player carrying the team to complete their objective. Despite the change, The Raid still provides a rewarding experience unlike any other content in Destiny 2.

After completing the Raid and Nightfall, the rest of the game lies with loot. Destiny 2 lacks content specific loot for you to chase like in Destiny 1. In Destiny 1, players are incentivized to replay the hard mode Raid and Strikes because it was the only way to earn specific weapons, armor sets, and ships. Destiny 2 fails to entice players to play certain playlists for that loot. There is gear you can earn specific to the raid, PvP, and different worlds, but you can buy engrams from vendors for a chance to earn the weapon you want. The game incentivize players to grind for faction tokens to buy those engrams rather than earn the rewards from playing the content.

The majority of the rewards you earned in Destiny's raids and strikes are now locked behind the Eververse in Destiny 2. When you level past the level cap, you earn a free lootbox in the form of a Bright Engram. Bright Engrams are decoded by the vendor at Eververse. You have a chance at unique armor sets, ornaments for gear, weapon and armor mods, ghosts with reward modifiers, exotic ships, faster sparrows, and prettier shaders. Bright Engrams serves as a way to freely obtain these items without buying the in-game currency with real money. If earning XP to get a free lootbox doesn't tickle your fancy, you can dismantle your Eververse rewards for Bright Dust. However, buying items at Eververse comes at a great cost of Bright Dust.

Raising your Light Level is reduced to a weekly grind of your milestone. Once you complete your weekly milestones, you are given a Powerful Engram. The Powerful Engrams give you a chance at a weapon or armor piece that can increase your Light Level. Getting the right gear for a certain equipment slot is determined by luck. Light Level continues to be the attribute that increases the damage done by your character's abilities and weapons. Light Level also gages how well your character may fare for the endgame content. If you barely meet the minimum Light Level requirement for the endgame, you will have a tough experience. When you are Light Level 300, you are considered overleveled for the content, but you don't feel as powerful since enemies scale to your level. Because of this, you will feel the same from Level 1 to Light Level 300.

Bungie achieved their goals providing player a different experience with Destiny 2. However, Destiny 2 relies on too many recycled assets from the previous game to be called a true sequel. Most of the content feels too much of the same from Destiny 1. Bungie does take major risk to change the structure of the game to develop a more balanced game. But too many changes affect the core gameplay that Destiny 1 perfected. Destiny 2 is a good game. But Destiny 1 was a better and fuller game.

Keep in mind, Destiny 2 is still a living, breathing, and ongoing video game. Bungie is still listening to the community feedback. They are tweaking the game's economy and reward system with new seasonal content. On that note, I don't recommend spending time and money on this game. Unless something drastic reworks the underlying flaws of the game's framework, Destiny 2 will never get to the former glory of Destiny in its third year. Instead of bouncing off Destiny as a foundation to evolve the franchise, Destiny 2 rehashes, reboots, sells you an inferior product.

Disclosure: Pistol Packin' Poet is a minor stockholder of Activision Blizzard, Inc. (ATVI). His ownership of stock does not impact his review on Destiny 2. Pistol Packin' Poet played over 500 hours of Destiny 1 and Destiny 2 combined for PC and PS4.