Bungie has blown the doors off Destiny 2. We've seen the game in action and we've been drenched in details concerning the shooter's many modes of play. Basically, Destiny 2 sounds like it's aiming to be bigger, better, and more accessible than its predecessor. In other words, it's shaping up to be an unsurprisingly solid sequel, building on what the original got right while also reworking the things that needed to be improved.
With that in mind, allow us to break down the five most important things that we learned about Destiny 2 from its gameplay reveal event.
It promises a much improved story and campaign
Always a fair criticism against the original Destiny, the campaign and the story that surrounded it were pretty weak. Characters that were just fountains of exposition and vague objectives were the order of the day, and it was often clear that the plot had been butchered at some point during development, leading to a series of missions that were barely held together by a terribly disjointed narrative.
Much like later expansions The Taken King and Rise of Iron, Destiny 2 is looking to address that criticism by offering a more in-depth story packed with cutscenes. Bungie says that the sequel's campaign features the most cinematic sequences to date, so you can expect to see a lot of the property's three primary characters: Zavala, Cayde, and Ikora.
The story will also set a main villain up from the start: Lord Ghaul, a big Cabal b*stard who's hellbent on taking the Traveller for himself. We could be looking at a simple but well produced tale of revenge here, especially seeing as Ghaul marches up and destroys everything that you hold dear right at the beginning of the game.
It'll have four big worlds to explore, all stuffed with activities
The original Destiny had some interesting environments that you were free to explore and patrol, but none of them measured up to the kind of locations that you'd find in a truly open world game. If you wanted to get into the real meat of Destiny, you'd probably start to avoid these free-roam areas altogether, and this is something that Destiny 2 really wants to address.
The sequel will have four new worlds to explore: the European Dead Zone, Titan, Nessus, and Io. Each one of them will supposedly be stuffed with various activities to keep both solo and co-op explorers happy. There'll be 'Adventures' - which sound like small-scale stories - a heavier emphasis on public events, and 'Lost Sectors'. The latter are apparently dungeons scattered throughout the worlds that are infested with enemies. Hopefully the loot that they house will be worth the trouble.
All in all, it sounds like Bungie's really expanding the concept of having open areas to explore. Again, bigger and better seems to be the main focus here.
The Crucible is being refined
The big multiplayer headline is that all game modes will now feature four-on-four matches. That's less players for some modes that were in the original Destiny, but we have to assume Bungie has a good reason for dropping the numbers. It's probably looking to make the Crucible a more competitive environment - and one that's perhaps a little more personal.
It's also getting a brand new game mode called Countdown. The goal of the attacking team is to plant a bomb in the enemy's base and protect it until it explodes. The defending team will obviously have to try and stop the attackers from doing that, and then once it's over, the roles are reversed. Pretty basic stuff, but it sounds like it could be good fun.
We'll no doubt hear more about the changes to the Crucible over the next few months via Bungie livestreams and developer blog posts. In any case, competitive players should definitely have something to look forward to.
There's a brand new clan system that offers matchmaking
Wow, a clan system that's actually in the game and hosted entirely on a website? Incredible!
Snark aside, Bungie went into great detail regarding Destiny 2's clan system during the reveal event. Basically, you'll be able to create a clan and get other players to join you all from within the game. This should make organising sessions with your allies a breeze, and you can even assign your own custom banner to your group.
All of this seems like an obvious addition, but things get more interesting when it comes to matchmaking. In the original Destiny, matchmaking isn't available for endgame content like Raids and difficult Nightfall Strikes. If you don't have the right amount of players, you have little choice but to recruit other Guardians, either through specific sites on the internet or by spamming people with invites in a social space like the Tower.
For some people this works well enough, but for others, it means that there's no simple and easy way to tackle the endgame content on a regular basis. With the new clan system in Destiny 2, however, you'll be able to matchmake with a clan of your choice. So, for example, if you're by yourself and you want to try a Raid, you can simply search for a clan that needs an extra person and join up. Likewise, if your party is only a couple of people short, you can opt to search for players who are eager to fill those spots. It sounds like a reasonable compromise to us.
A more streamlined user experience
Destiny was full of loading screens; we don't dare think about how many cumulative hours we've spent sat staring at our spaceship as it travelled to and from different planets. We've seen less attractive loading screens for sure, but the fact remains that Destiny felt like a very segmented experience. If you wanted to go back to your hub, you had to jump back into orbit, then pick your destination from a map. If you wanted to try a new activity, you had to go back to orbit first and again, choose another location from your map. It was a very clunky system.
Fortunately, Destiny 2 is doing away with all that 'return to orbit' nonsense. The big explorable planets that we mentioned earlier will house everything that you need - all you have to do is open up your map and go there. And that counts for separate planets, too; you'll be able to jump from one world to another without having to return to space. To use a particularly popular buzzword, it all sounds very seamless.
So, what do you think of Destiny 2 based on what you've seen so far? Are you hyped, or are you a little cautious? Fight back against the darkness in the comments section below.
Comments 29
Certainly seems to be addressing most of the criticism that Destiny suffered with. I do wonder whether they will streamline the missions for 'dailies' or whether these will still exist. The originals were 'similar' more like mini strikes with little 'story' but that was OK for daily missions.
My biggest criticism of Destiny was how often the 'weapon' balancing for Crucible made the weapons useless in PvE. I hope this time around, they can be balanced separately. Nothing is more frustrating when something works in one area but because the other area complains, it ruins the weapon in both areas.
@BAMozzy I think the fact that Bungie didn't go into any details about loot or weapons suggests that changes have been made and they'll be dedicating a later livestream or presentation to them. Hopefully for the better!
As a mainly solo player I'm looking forward to this now. The improvement to the open worlds/areas is exactly what I wanted in the first game, and always hoped they'd add in more reasons to actually explore them. So, I'm happy to hear this.
Not sure about the Crucible being cut down to 4v4 though, unless we get much smaller maps this could cut down the action a bit.
Loving the looks of the new planets. I think it might be a preorder for me, coz I'd like that beta access.
The one thing destiny should have taken from the meme filled borderlands games was the buttload of looting, destiny doesn't really encourage exploration because you never found anything cool.
@kyleforrester87 I'm pretty sure the Beta will be open to everyone after a certain point. Can't remember where I read that though.
@sonicmeerkat yeah, for a game that was supposedly based on loot it had f*ck all tbh.
I'm waiting for new's about loot, leveling, number and variety of abilitie's, extra class's, and stuff like that. This all look's cool and is very welcome but this alone won't make it the game I want, i'll be buying it day 1 anyway even if I do have doubt's, I can't wait.
Funny thing is I'm sure they'll be a PS clan.... that I'll probably join despite the timezone issues...because who wants to make new friends?
Seriously though, snark aside the clans is a good addition.
@itshoggie I think I read it on this site i'm not sure, but there's a closed beta for people with pre order's then an open beta later on for everyone else if I remember right.
@xMEADx yeah, that's probably where I read it too. Lol
@itshoggie ahh cool maybe ill wait for the open beta then. Either way it's all but guaranteed as s day one purchase so might not hurt to preorder anyway. Might even go digital this time round.
Also the PC version doesn't have a definitive release date. Usually I would chalk this up to another company trying to treat PC like second rate customers, but I actually don't think this is the case here.
It will only be available on Battlenet, which is exclusive to Blizzard games. I'm willing to wager at this point that Blizzard won't let anything touch their platform if it's a hot buggy mess, something Activision is pretty good at. Time will tell, and hopefully I won't have to wait a year to play because I choose to do so on my strongest hardware.
@ShogunRok I have no doubt that Bungie will do a lot of new Loot and weapons but my concern is that they will be 'balanced' according to the data and complaints of those in the crucible and that will affect the usefulness in PvE. Auto Rifles are virtually useless in PvE and so many weapons were 'balanced' based on Crucible data. Some made no sense - reducing the rockets in Truth from 3 to 1 for example - not that it was 'great' in PvE but it made it redundant in both. I don't know anyone that complained about the Vex in PvE but because of Crucible that got nerfed completely as did Thorn too. I could go on and on but as soon as a weapon or type got used a lot in crucible, or someone said something was OP in crucible, it got nerfed and affected its usage in PvE. These need to balanced separately!!!
I wouldn't hold my breath over the looking for players system. From personal experience people who do raids regularly are stuck up and dont want to carry a "noob" because they dont have any raid gear or some other stupid nonsense. I gave up on the taken king for this reason but I found it funny as I only ever made one mistake in the ttk raid... yet never finished it because other peoples mistakes.
@B-I-G-DEVIL I do raids regularly and love to help anyone having trouble with it. And you would be surprised to find that there are actually lots of people like me willing to teach or learn. Just keep trying and im sure you'll eventually find a good group that can communicate with eachother and help eachother no matter the outcome. (: happy hunting!
Seriously excited for this game... they blew up my expectations with a blast radius of a 100% increase. For the noodle shop!!!
Never got to do a raid in destiny one . so I'm really glad bungie are adding matchmaking should have been in the first one for raids. Ridiculously ha . already preordered the special edition . can't wait
I'm going purely from the voice acting and I haven't researched but it sounds like Nathan Fillion, Rosario Dawson and Lance Reddick are doing major character voices. If Captain Mal is involved, I may pick it up.
Obviously Nolan North will be in there somewhere. No Dinklebot though.
Story was fine in D1, they just failed to tell us about it. Matchmaking finally, well done.
It all depends on how many of my friends get this, but it looks really really cool! I do wonder if I should hold off until the inevitable DLC...that was a chief regret when I got Destiny in Year One.
Also I'd really appreciate dedicated servers. There was nothing more annoying than losing connection to Destiny's servers during a raid or Nightfall due to no fault, and nothing more scary than a laggy Bladedancer in Crucible.
@BAMozzy PvP and PvE balancing should have absolutely been separate; 100% agree! I completely forgot how annoying the gun meta was in Destiny! I remember getting the Pocket Infinity and loving that gun to pieces! It was so good, but then they nerfed it into the dirt... That was a sad day.
@walrusballs I already gave up it just put me off completely.
I already had the platinum for game I just bought ttk cheap and was going to get ROI if it went well which it really didn't. Tried for weeks to the point where I just didn't want to touch the game anymore.
I know there are people who do help etc and aren't as picky but I never found them!
This sounds tremendous. Now we need to address if the PS4 online can be more stable and not get hacked/taken offline making the game unplayable. I.e. Any chance we can play offline?
@smythelove There is no way this will have an offline mode as everything takes place in an 'online' space. Missions have communal areas with regular public events, even if you are playing Solo. You don't have to rush to get missions done, you can spend time in a communal area farming materials, seeking out loot, participating in public events, levelling up weapons/gear/character etc etc. Its not CoD or BF where only the MP is Online and you can do Co-op offline or online - everything is Online.
@BAMozzy Sounds good I guess if PSN is down play something else then 😀
It all looks great, but they haven't revealed if they will have dedicated servers yet? PVP in D1 was a joke; there is no way I would buy D2 if they don't have this. I think that they won't, which is why they're keeping quiet.
Any game that we ACTUALLY HEARD of would be nice. Surprised that games like Watch Dogs or Until Dawn haven't been a PS Plus freebie. I don't expect exclusives, but the fact that Until Dawn is a 4hr game, seems likely to be free. There's games I haven't had the chance to play yet & others I don't have interest in but would give a chance. More variety than just kids games is all I ask.
And everyone asking for Life Is Strange, I've seen that for free for a whole year. I thought about checking it out but wasn't sure if it was any good. 2 games I'd recommend is Neverwinter (+free DLC) & Warframe.
@XurAgentofthe9 No dedicated servers.
http://uk.ign.com/articles/2017/05/19/destiny-2-wont-use-dedicated-servers
@Paranoimia That sucks! Don't think I'll bother then. It's a pretty basic requirement for a modern game to be honest. The cheating on D1 due to servers is a joke.
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