Destiny 2 is just as big of a game as the first was. They have yet to add a couple things like Iron Banner to the game but there’s a ton of stuff that can be done and can keep the players busy for many, many hours such as the Campaign, Crucible, Strikes and the fan-favorite raids. Below, each will get talked about individually, rendering it easier to give focus to each of the main portions of the game.
Campaign:
Destiny 2’s campaign is stellar! They finally took everything we liked about the story they gave The Taken King and Rise of Iron expansions and added it to the main story for this game. One of the things a lot of people wanted more of was just a good ‘ol story, which is what vanilla Destiny lacked. They added more cutscenes to really give the story more feel and more emotion and it really makes you want to fight for the Guardians and Earth.
The campaign starts out with everyone in the main control center that Cayde -6, Ikora and Zavala were always at in the original game. Ikora suddenly reports that the satellites they once had surrounded the Earth are no longer there. Zavala instantly gets worried, knowing something is seriously wrong. He looks out the windows over the city and as a flash of lightning lights up the sky, it reveals an entire fleet of enemy ships heading straight to them. Zavala immediately yells for everyone to rally to him, as the enemy ships send a volley of missiles. Zavala brings up a bubble shield just as every missile explodes on an impact. Your guardian makes his way to The Last City, only to see it completely under siege. You soon find out that a Cabal leader known as Ghaul is behind this terrorist attack. His objective? The Traveler and its Light.
The main story is full of other exciting moments, such as when you get your Light back, and gaining access to the new social space: The Farm. You also get to meet new characters along the way such Hawthorne, who is a lone guardian, wanting to help take back what the citizens of Earth lost and plenty of other new faces while visiting The Farm. During your play time, you are also visiting new planets that we’ve never before seen, such as IO, the Nessus and Titan, each having their own unique landscape and terrors to offer, along with breath-taking vistas within each planet. The newest thing about each planet is it is so much more for you to do now. They have the ‘Exotic Weapon’ quests you can do; you can now upgrade the Public Events to Heroic Public Events by doing certain things in them, such as destroying an airship while protecting a drill or raising antennas while preventing Vex from going towards a light beacon. They have Lost Sectors too, which are semi-hidden areas with enemies and a single boss. Once you kill the boss, there is a loot chest that will give you all sorts of stuff, such as armor pieces, weapons and tokens you can take to the vendors at each planet.
Crucible and PVP:
You hardly thought Destiny 2 was about to leave the Crucible behind, did you? Crucible is just as it was in Destiny, with little change outside of new maps, and one new game mode for the Competitive playlist, called Countdown. In Countdown, the attacking team picks one of two points on the map to go to and activate a timed charge, after which they must defend. While the one team defends, the other team must now get to that point, take out the enemies guarding it and disarm the charge before it explodes.
Another thing they changed is the Trials of Osiris, now, renamed to Trials of the Nine, and is slightly different. These trials are a weekly challenge that has you attempt to win seven matches in a row of a certain game mode that you’ve more than likely come across while playing standard Crucible. This time around though, you need not to worry about your Power level. You can equip whatever weapons you want, but note, once you choose your loadout, you’re stuck with it for that game. What’s really neat about this is there’s a cutscene before the match begins that can show you your opponent’s loadouts as well, letting you know exactly what you’re up against in each match. If you go flawless in your journey through the Trials of the Nine, there is a special thing that happens, but you’ll have to do it yourself – I’m not going spoil that for you.
Strikes:
Strikes are pretty much the same as they were back in Destiny, only it seems this time around the bosses are a little more thought out and they seem harder to take down. Once you get your Light (they call it Power level now but Light just sounds so much better) level up to 240, you unlock the Weekly Nightfall Strikes. These are a lot different from the Nightfalls you were used to in the original game. Strikes are now timed, and depending on the strike that week, that time limit may be fixed or you may be able to generate more time for yourself by completing certain tasks, such as killing enemies and picking up Light balls they drop, jumping through circular terminals or by destroying certain objects. They also throw in little objectives you have to complete in order to progress to the final boss, such as going through pillars of light or killing all the enemies in an area. While these might not seem like hard tasks, the limited time makes things challenging.
Overall:
Overall, this game is fantastic. There are a couple aggravating aspects to the game, like once you get to Light 265, the game kind of halts and you have to spend more time grinding and doing Heroic Public Events, the Crucible, Nightfall Strikes, Raids, as well as getting your Clan points. Doing all of that takes a lot more time to do and you’re not always rewarded with gear that will bump your Light level up considerably. Another annoying aspect of the game is the new addition of Guided Games. Guided Games are a matchmaking variant for the Nightfall Strikes and the Raids. These don’t really work all that well if you want to do the Nightfall or the Raid and don’t have people you can play with. You spend anywhere between 30mins to an hour waiting, even then you’re and still not guaranteed to get picked up by an existing fireteam. It’s very frustrating and people that don’t have a fireteam or people to play with in general miss out on huge parts that make this game great. It’s understandable why they don’t include general matchmaking for these modes, as you could very well end up with trolls who will join your game and then leave, leaving you at such a disadvantage that it makes it unplayable. You could also get teamed up with someone who doesn’t know how to communicate very well, making an already challenging experience much more difficult.
Verdict:
This game is fantastic! Even with the frustrating aspects, this game has a great storyline to follow, with tons of lore to discover and a pretty decent PvP setup. If you like spending time with friends, patrolling the planets in search of loot to get you strong enough to take on the Nightfall and the Raid, this game is right up your alley. Destiny 2 takes what Destiny 1 had and brings it to next-gen consoles in a way that Destiny 1 couldn’t. It’s a return to familiarity with refreshing aspects and challenges that are sure to have you spending countless hours figuring out and conquering. Destiny 2 is a must play FPS and a great collection to any gamers library.
