The most exciting thing by far is the fact that all the Raids are back. Updated Raids matching appropriately the light level of Guardians and its fair because it’s not even the max light level of 400, it’s 390. This ensures that more people will get to experience the Raids, instead of just the top tier level players. Besides having free reign on all Raids and smashing in some old baddies’ faces, the updated Raids come with something even more worthwhile: the coolest armor to ever come out of Destiny. While I haven’t been the biggest fan of some of the armor choices made by Bungie, whoever thought of this totally revamped package of all armor was a genius. Seeing the new Raid armor was enough to sell me on Age of Triumph — Vault of Glass aside. It just looks so space-magic, and isn’t that what it’s all about?
Finally, we were able to sneak in a match of Countdown, a new multiplayer mode in Destiny 2. The mode is essentially Search & Destroy. One team is tasked with planting a bomb, and the other is tasked with defusing it. If an entire team is eliminated, however, the round ends. The first team to win six rounds is the victor. It’s a neat mode for those who like these types of multiplayer modes. For those who don’t like it, modes like Clash will return. Unlike Destiny, however, all multiplayer modes will only support eight players, down from twelve.
On paper, The Infinite Forest sounds like a fascinating concept. Bringing in procedurally-generated dungeons would be an exciting way to invigorate the endgame like with Bloodborne’s Chalice dungeons. Sadly, even this concept is ruined thanks to asinine levels of repetition. All the Infinite Forest is is just a linear set of platforms populated with generic enemies players have been fighting for the past three years. The sad thing is, there’s not much of a challenge here. It’s possible just to skip the enemies and head towards the door. On occasion you do need to kill an enemy to unlock the door, you can accomplish it by just hanging near the last platform and shooting them from afar.
Destiny 2 did manage to fix a couple of small issues from the first game, but it’s otherwise taken several steps back. Its consumable cosmetics and loot box-style method of awarding gear encourages hoarding and disengagement from the end-game grind. Its failure to offer at least as many features as the original Destiny has unsurprisingly led to rapid onset of player boredom. Worst of all, its neutering of the PvE’s moment-to-moment gameplay has resulted in a sequel that just isn’t as much fun to play. Destiny 2 may indeed have a loot problem as so many are loudly pointing out, but that’s small potatoes compared to check these guys out major fundamental flaws.
However, probably the most disgusting offense this expansion imposes on players is that vanilla players are now locked out of key content they had access to just weeks ago. The Prestige Leviathan raid now requires a Power Level that can only be attained by purchasing the DLC. This is especially terrible for PC owners who have only had six weeks to enjoy this content. Considering ‘Dark Below’ did not lock vanilla Destiny players out of the ‘Vault of Glass’ hard mode, there’s no excuse for what’s going on here.
There are no new enemy species in Destiny 2. We still have the Fallen, Cabal, Vex and Hive, which are all returning from the Destiny 1 era. From a story perspective, how do you make enemies players have fought so many times over the past three years feel fresh?
It’s still too early to say Destiny 2 is going to be the dream game we all wanted when it was first announced in 2013, but based on what we played, Bungie is on the right track. We’re finally getting that cinematic, set piece filled campaign that was mysteriously missing. Strikes are going to put players in big environments and have them do more than just shoot bullet sponge enemies. There are new modes to play, worlds to see and characters to interact with. Destiny 2 may just be the game Destiny was always meant to be.
[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.
Speaking of space-magic, more lore has been filled in with the arrival of new ghost. Yes, not everyone wants to crawl to the internet to discovery the intricate workings of just what makes Destiny tick, but for lore-nerds like me, this is a dream come true. I will gladly take more lore, because for those who don’t know, Destiny has some crazy cool sci-fi/fantasy lore. When is space-magic a bad thing? It’s not. Any tad bit more of lore to leak out will be greedily consumed until the next one arrives. It might seem like a small thing, but all those NPCs aren’t just spotting nonsense, they are referencing things. It’s the same reason every item has a cryptic description. In fact, this might be the best time to get to know Destiny. Might as well see how it all came to be while waiting for Destiny 2, right? So, go read that lore. It’s crazy and out-there in the best of ways. Just know it’s heavy on the space-magic — a wizard did come from the moon, after all. If that doesn’t sum it up, I don’t know what does.