Release Date: 06/08/2017
Played On: Win
Available On: PS4 / Win / XBO
Time Played: 30h 31m
Progress: Completed Campaign + 2 DLCs + Extras
Developer: Bungie
Publisher: Activision
There are times when it's easy to forget how relevant the cost of a game can be when thinking about quality and enjoyment. After all, my experience with the original Destiny was quite mediocre, so I never expected to be playing the sequel anytime soon. That is until Bungie and Activision decided to discount the game heavily not long after release.
I can't remember the exact nature of my purchase, but I remember picking up the game and its first two expansions in a bundle for around $30. After the initial reaction to the game's launch, I figured that I'd be in for roughly the same experience that I had with the first game, so this had to be a reasonable cost to sink. While I'm not sold enough to pay full price, there's undoubtedly enough in the game to warrant a mid-tier price range.
Remember that I'm not someone who plays these MMO style games for PVP or competitive interactions. In fact, I didn't even spent a second in the PVP arena style part of the game called The Crucible, because I couldn't think of anything more boring in a game like this. My focus was on PVE questing and following the main storyline of the game in order to experience the epic worlds and science fiction universe built for us to explore.
This is clearly where Destiny 2 shines brightest, as it stands as a fine example of the kind of world building that big development teams are capable of. If you've read any of my Assassin's Creed posts, you'll know that I love the extensive detail built into the game's environment. Ultimately if a game has a beautiful and impressive world to explore, chances are I'll be interested, and Destiny 2 does not disappoint.
I'm a fan of science fiction landscapes and I love retro futurist visions of advanced technologies and beings. While Destiny 2 is full of these environments, there is an added bonus that they all exist within our known solar system. This isn't some distant galaxy where anything is plausible; these are relatively local and familiar destinations that have been altered over time. It's a theme that started in the first game and has been carried through to this one, and it works really well.
Throughout the campaign you're tasked with visiting every location in the system, and each one managed to take my breath away. The art direction in Destiny 2 is astounding and I often found myself standing still on an elevated platform, simply to absorb the beautiful landscape before me. It's a true testament to the depth and care taken in the world design, that I was often more interested in how the world was put together, than anything happening around me.
The first time I landed on Titan and witnessed the billowing waves of an endless ocean, I felt vulnerable and in awe of its scale. Later in the campaign you encounter giant power generators that move with the waves and drive turbines. These things aren't all that important to the running-around-and-shooting-aliens part of the game, but it's a wonderful place to be running around.
Other locations have similarly impressive elements to soak in, like the alien forests of Nessus that intertwine with technological pillars and structures; or the giant pyramids of Io that loom over the rocky landscape below. Each world has its own aesthetic and theme that not only invites exploration, but reflects whatever alien race has taken up residence.
For example, Nessus may appear to be an alien forest of weird plant-life, but all the technological structures indicate that this where the Vex spend a lot of time. In fact, the entire planet was converted by the Vex into a huge machine that now serves as a home to this robotic race. I'm sure there's some more history to explain everything, but that's about as much as I picked up along the way.
In fact, the entire plot and lore of Destiny 2 appears to be deeply thought out and designed, but very little of it actually managed to find its way into my head. As someone who loves a decent narrative in games, this is worrying. To say that the story in Destiny 2 lacks any compelling premise or execution is quite an understatement.
One of the biggest complaints I heard about the original Destiny, was that the story felt undercooked and was boring at best. Destiny 2 promised a better story, and in a lot of ways it is better, yet it still fails to really make any impression throughout the lengthy campaign. Even in the most grindy MMOs, I like to follow the story and see what's happening, but I soon found myself skipping the story text in Destiny 2 and pushing through each objective.
It's a real shame because it's clear that there's a more cohesive story being told. I don't remember anything about the first game, but I can at least recognise a skeleton of the second's plot if I try hard enough. It has something to do with all the 'good guys' getting destroyed and all the guardians (player-characters) losing their super-duper powers.
A group of NPCs find you after everything's been destroyed and get you to help them try and take back what they lost. The 'Traveller' (big deity that holds all the power) has apparently been stolen by the bad guys and you're there to help them get it back by shooting lots of things and collecting lots of loot. All fine and dandy, but soon enough you get your super-super powers back and everyone is like "wow you're the saviour of humanity", so now you're at the centre of the plot.
Except, this is where Destiny 2 continues to make the same MMO mistakes that most other MMOs make. Throughout the story, every NPC I met manage to talk to me in a way that sounded like they thought I was the only 'guardian' with super-duper powers who could help them save the plot. At no point did they acknowledge the fact that I was one of the countless other guardians running around, doing the same quests, shooting people and collecting loot.
Sure it's fun to follow the hero fantasy of being the only one left that can save the universe from dire consequences, but the gravity of the situation gets a little diluted when you're standing next to xxRooDBoYxx who's tea-bagging the NPC delivering stern exposition. As a player you're trying to suspend disbelief and go along for the ride, but every other player-character is running around typing slurs into text-chat, which inevitably derails the experience.
I don't understand why MMO games still insist on pretending that you're the only one the NPCs can rely on. Of all the genres available, the 'massively multiplayer' genre seems to be the least suited to such a narrative. Especially when you consider how other MMOs have managed to deliver the same story, but recognise that you're part of a huge team of players fighting for a collective goal. It's a dumb mistake to make, and the quality of the game's experience suffers as a result.
Something I talked about in my post on the original Destiny, was how the game seemed to be a bit confused about what it wanted to be. It's like the developers couldn't decide on whether they were making a massively multiplayer game (like World of Warcraft, Guild Wars, etc) or a co-op looter shooter (like Borderlands, The Division, etc). After all there are elements of both, but the Destiny games never really lean hard on one side or the other.
What ends up happening instead is a distinct feeling of dissonance, as the player needs to shift their focus and expectations drastically from one kind of game to another. At worst it feels like Destiny and Destiny 2 have a bad case of schizophrenia, as they'll be taking you on a small raid one moment, followed by a scrappy pick-up-battle in the open world the next. Of course these things are not mutually exclusive, but there's a jarring difference in the pace and purpose of gameplay that makes the transition abrasive.
Unfortunately this all results in there being large parts of Destiny 2 that I had to simply ignore if I wanted to enjoy myself, and I did enjoy myself. Although, it's always a shame to know that there are entire systems in a game that you'll never utilise because the cost of entry is too high. No matter how much I wanted to follow the story and interact with other players, I was always encouraged not to because the story made very little sense, and there were no satisfying mechanisms in place to interact with other players.
This is a worry when your game is essentially a light MMO that sells itself on the fact you're playing an epic story with other people. Perhaps it's simply the curse of many MMOs where players are selfish in the way they play, which is entirely acceptable when they've spent their hard earned dollars to be entertained. I suppose I miss the days of choosing different servers to play on, and maybe I'd enjoy Destiny more if they had dedicated RP servers where players put in the effort to take the game seriously.
Then again, I doubt I would ever be that invested in something as disparate as Destiny 2. For every beautiful landscape available to simply explore and soak in, there are many annoyances. If it's not the game lying to me and telling me how special I am, it's the other players behaving in ways that explicitly confirm the same.
The loot grind is the standard treadmill of finding weapons and armour with larger numbers, but I did find a couple of loadouts that felt different and interesting to use. The super-duper powers can also be swapped out and changed, which is a nice to stave off boredom a little longer.
Despite all of the flaws, I still found Destiny 2 enjoyable, but I credit most of that enjoyment to the wonderful environments that the team have created. Sure it's no reason to invest hard earned monies into a game, but the strength of the world design managed to carry me through the entire campaign, and the first two DLCs. I shudder to think how much of a slog it would have been if the game wasn't dripping with an impressive science fiction aesthetic.
Like most MMOs, I expect a grind and I expect a lame story, so I have to forgive Bungie a little for making another boring looter-shooter. However, I can't express how wonderful it is to inhabit the world and explore every inch of every planet available. Sure the NPCs have amnesia and think you're the only hero they've ever met, despite the long line of candidates behind and ahead of you, but even that's kind of forgivable. It's the difference between doing what's expected and doing something new, and with that in mind it's easy to say that Destiny 2 does just about everything you might expect from the team that made Halo trying to make a MMO game.
So at the end of the day Destiny 2 is a slight iteration on everything that came with its predecessor. The locations are bigger and more impressive, but the story still lacks any understandable cohesion, and the series appears to be stuck in a rut between MMO tropes and looter-shooter gameplay. It's a weird mix that still doesn't feel quite right, but there's lots to enjoy if you like science fiction worlds and are okay with the grind.
I'm curious to see what the future holds for Destiny, as its heavy discounts and heavier promises only seem to indicate a little bit of desperation. After all the promises about how Destiny 2 would address everything that was wrong with the first game, it's clear that very few changes were made. I guess I might pick up the next game when it's free or part of a cheap bundle, but my experience with Destiny 2 has taught me that Bungie still has a lot to learn about making MMO games.