Jumping in, the beta opens with a great start, showcasing the opening mission which immediately wraps up a story arc for old players and wipes the slate clean for new players. It’s a guaranteed win-win. Unless you’re a guardian, that is, then it’s a significant loss. For a mission showcase, https://www.destiny2Focus.com/ this is an excellent example; this story mission had more feeling in it than all of my time spent with my guardian. Characters are interacting with you. Mysteries as to where other characters went are easy to spot in the environment and it all around creates a sense of awe. Where is Eris Morn? Her glowing green jar half buried in ruble where she once stood. Or the cleaning bot that maintains its programming, casually sweeping up the blood of dead Cabal while the Tower is literally on fire in every other regard. Seeing some of the most famous guardians in action, working with you. Entering a hallway and seeing the very people Guardians are supposedly protecting, scared, huddling together as their home is taken away. Destiny 2 wants to hit with impact, and it does.
[JH]: There’s two key things going on with Ghaul. One is giving him a goal and objective that he desperately wants that we as players can relate to. What do you care about? It’s your light, your progress, your powers. You care about that which the Traveler has given you. Ghaul wants that, and it’s the thing that you’re both going to fight for. The second is, when you start digging into the story, you see that he has a drive and obsession with being worthy. He doesn’t want to just take it, he wants to earn it.
The Strike is a good place to start. It reveals a little more of the world players can expect, showcasing great improvements to Destiny. The most notable thing about the Strike is just how open it felt. Instead of running casually down one big hallway that twist and turns, the Strike makes use of all the space available. The number of paths available was astounding and never has it been so easy to get separated from the group, meaning communication (or keeping an eye out) is key. Party members can’t just run ahead to go off and do their own thing; the Strike actually requires some teamwork and that’s a good thing. More than a few times, imminent danger is awaiting any careless Guardian who might think "I’ve got this." The mechanics of it all also helped with this feeling, giving the Strike enough complexity, but not so much that it felt bogged down. It’s hard to get an exact read, though, because this is only one Strike and without leveling of any sort, it might just seem tough. This is how every Destiny expansion has played out. Things feel like they were getting more challenging, but level up enough gear and light, and those Strikes become cake-walks. I even encountered some of this already, by just breezing past the giant drill without stopping. What looked like a challenging set piece became just a set piece. No interaction required.
Destiny 2 is headed in the right direction. Perhaps it's too little too late or maybe it could pull a healthy player base back in. For now, Destiny 2 is trying its best and is showing signs of quality of life for its future. Today it’s no surprise when buying a new game to be hit immediately by a patch, because what game makes it out of the door ever without having to go through a few updates and patches once it’s out the gate? Usually a major update will hit games freshly released within the first month followed by the steady stream of content and improvements. All of this is commonplace in the video game world and yet we as the audience still find time to get mad that games aren’t the perfect embodiment of what was envisioned. Developers do have a responsibility to be open with their audience and it does become a let down when certain things promised are nowhere to be seen or the game is more broken than let on. So let the saga of Destiny as it continues through the ages be a lesson, one that we are seeing more and more frequently – Anthem is on the horizon, after all. But it's our responsibility as players and developers to keep the dialogue going to get the best experience possible from all sides. Good luck out there, Guardian.
One of the biggest questions around Destiny 2 is if Activision and Bungie are doing enough to fix what is an extremely wonky machine, and if so, can it be saved? Destiny 2 does have a dedicated fan base, but even that has hit a low point compared to when Destiny found itself going through these same woes, just with less grief, which makes sense. Destiny isn't perfect and it came a long way from when it launched, but many of the problems in Destiny 2 didn't exist for Destiny. In many ways Destiny 2 felt like it had taken about a thousand steps back. Now Destiny 2 finds itself not only on the same trajectory as the original, but also with more patches and leaks to fix. The boat was sinking as soon as it hit water, it just took a little time at sea to see just how bad things were.