I recently got a PS4, and my brother had a copy of Destiny lying around that he had no intention of playing so he handed it off to me. Upon doing some research via google it seems as though strikes, pvp, weeklys, nightfalls, and raids will be unavailable to me, leaving me with just the story missions and bounties to play. From what I've heard of the game, the raids are easily the biggest draw of the game whereas the story isn't all that great. Is it worth the time to check it out, or should I forget about it until I decide to get a PS + sub?

No its not, story stuff and bounties are super boring.

Destiny is a really, really hard game to talk about with people you don't really know. There are so many parts of the game that are fantastic, even alone, but there are definitely things that will turn some people off.

The game is a lot of fun to play, but has a lot of the MMO tropes without being an MMO. It can get grindy, you have to run between places often multiple times, some bosses suck since they're such bullet sponges and can kill you almost instantly.

If you can play something like Diablo by yourself and have a good time, you can play Destiny by yourself and have a good time.

I couldn't imagine playing Destiny without the online components.

I'd say no. Destiny is a fine game, but I feel most the best parts of Destiny come out when you are playing with friends/other people. Yeah you can see people out in the world levels and such, but the strikes and raids are the best part of the game, so not being able to do that would make the game kinda pointless to me.

As a big fan of Destiny, no.

A lot of the best content is gated to PS+. Strikes, multiplayer, Trials of Osiris, SRL racing, Crimson Doubles, Prison and Challenge of Elders, and raids. I don't even like playing with other people a lot of the time, but doing strikes is something that I honestly can't see playing the game without. Multiplayer is less of a concern since not everyone likes competitive stuff like that, but some of the modes are really fun even if you're not some MLG player.

Also, a lot of the ways to get free loot boxes (Sterling/Radiant treasure and stuff like the Dawning packages) are gated to PS+ activities. So if you want the cool new free ghosts, skins, sparrows, emotes or cosmetic armor that are in those boxes, you won't be able to get the free versions - you'll have to pay. In most cases, this is how they make these free versions of the boxes available. For instance, The Dawning is going on right now and the boxes that you can get for free for just playing the game and completely missions and bounties are really only linked to doing the SRL racing (multiplayer, requires PS+) and the strikes with the new scoring system (also requires PS+). So if you want to get free stuff that is associated with events, you're SOL. But you can buy them with their currency (I don't recommend it, since it's all RNG based and you can't pick what you want).

Playing with other people, whether it's in the single player missions or strikes or whatever, is also a lot of fun. Classes play off of each other, so yeah you can muddle through with a Titan or Hunter, but I find the most fun is rolling with at least one other person so you can work together. My favorite class is mainly a support class, so playing alone isn't much fun, but playing with my husband, who plays a tank, is the bees knees.

I like the single player game a lot, but without all of those other pieces of content, the game is really just a shell of what it can be. It's intended to have co-op and multiplayer elements, and for even people who are a bit antisocial (like me) to play those events/modes to get new gear/cosmetics and all of the fun stuff. Without having that stuff available, I don't see the point in playing the game, unfortunately.

@socuteboss: Is it just a copy of base Destiny? If so I say it depends on what else you have to play since you already have it. If you don't really have anything else to play right now, since it's free, and if you think you may give Destiny a shot later. Go ahead and play it some. That should give you a basic feel for how the game works. You will also be able to learn a lot of the materials and mechanics in case you ever want to actually put time into Destiny. BUT, make no mistake, you are more or less playing a demo of what the game is now playing base Destiny without a Playstation+ account. You are only going to be able to go through the base story and level up a character to 40 at most, I'm not even sure you are able to go past like 25 without any DLC, and level 2 subclasses on that character. But it will give you a big jump on a lot of the quests that would be in your way otherwise when you started full stop with the entire game.

I would use this time to decide if Destiny is a game for you. Just keep in mind the story got better with each DLC, playing with other people is how the game was designed to be played, and the best parts of the game will always be locked behind a Playstation+ sub. Basically playing just the base game now without a + Sub is playing the game the vast majority of Destiny critics hated, because that's how they played the game. So keep that in mind, it's very much not how the game was designed to be played, but it's a good test bed so to speak to see how you feel about it, and if you want to devote any more time to it. But if I had anything else worthwhile to play, say FFXV, Dead Rising 4, Watch Dogs 2, Dishonored 2, Mafia III, Uncharted 4, or anything else worthwhile I would put this little experiment on the back-burner. There isn't much going on in Destiny until at least the April update in like 4 months so you have some time before people really come back to Destiny in a meaningful way anyways. The Dawning event is going on for this week, but you wouldn't be in a position to participate in that even if you bought the full game with + today, and that really didn't bring back anyone anyways. Good luck.

I didn't even know you could play this offline.

No, playin online is the meat a peas with the gravy on top experience...offline is just a salad.

Absolutely not

@hestilllives19:

It's just a disc copy of the base game. I'm working a lot at the moment because I'm on break from Uni, and most of my spare time lately has gone to Bloodborne and Pokemon. I may still try Destiny at some point, but I think I'll wait and do it when I decide to get PS +, as I'd hate to judge the game on what is easily the slightest and worst parts of its content.

Sorta. The core combat gameplay is still fun, but the game shines its best in co-op.

If you get the game first and later decide to go online it'd be fine, since levelling up by yourself through the story missions is still fun and unless you've got a crew to go through it all with you, you'll be doing it alone anyways. But never going online would be missing out.

@socuteboss: I mean if you got it for free and want to blast through the "campaign" then sure it's worth it because it's like an extended tutorial that also prepares you for the rest of the game.

If you want to continue playing it beyond that then no, it's not worth it, although depending on your approach to grinding and RNG based activities one might argue that even with PS+ the game might still not be worth it to you. Especially if you don't get all the DLC.

@dharmabum: its still online i believe just no multiplayer, besides the hub and i guess bounties. I could be wrong though.

You can't play it without an internet connection, but you can play some aspects of the game without a PS+ or Xbox Live subscription. You still need to be connected to PSN or XBL though.