Destiny is an ambitious project by Bungie, the creators of the Halo series. It is hard to categorize or describe the game. It is often called a MMO first-person-shooter with RPG elements. Destiny was released three years ago and over time expanded with DLC. After its initial hype a lot of gamers were disappointed with the final product and there are a lot of misconceptions surrounding the game.
This Summer Destiny 2 will be released for PS4 and Xbox and in October for the first time also for PC.
I will not distinguish between Destiny and Destiny 2 because the concept of the game has not changed.
What is Destiny about?
It's a shooter
Destiny is a futuristic first-persoon shooter. It got a lot of hype because of Bungie, the creators of the HALO series. Bungie are well-known developers in the gaming console community. Their HALO series on the Xbox set the standard for first-person shooters on the console.
However Destiny is not your normal run-of-the-mill shooter like Call of Duty or Battlefield.
You are a Guardian
Your character is called a guardian. You actually "guard" an entity called the Traveler (a being that looks like a small moon and is the size of a city). This traveler has sent ghosts (small floating robots) to resurrect dead warriors to come to his aid.
You can choose between 3 classes, Warlock, Titan or Hunter (think Magician, Warrior and Thief) and 3 races Human, Exo and Awoken (Exo's are robots and Awoken aliens). The classes each have 3 sub-classes based on elemental powers Solar, Arc and Void (Fire, Electricity and dark energy).
It has a story (kind of...)
Years before we start our first mission the Traveler entered our solar system and sparked a Golden age for humanity. The Traveler started terraforming planets in our solar system and humans began traveling to other planets. Life was good under the guidance and protection of the Traveler but all good things must come to an end.
The Traveler was attacked by a force called the Darkness (you know that can't be good) and now floats unresponsive above earth. The guardians built a city beneath the seemingly lifeless Traveler and try to defend themselves as good as they can from attacks from alien races like the Fallen, the Hive, the Vex and the Cabal.
The story that is told in-game is rather confusing. Half the time you don't know what is going on or why. The rest of the story (or Lore ) is told via Grimoire cards.
Destiny has a pretty amazing story but Bungie is not doing a great job of telling it. Luckily there are a number of sites dedicated to the Destiny Lore. A good place to start for newcomers and PC gamers is here.
There is Loot
The items in Destiny are ranked from common to legendary and excotic. The weapons and armor that really matter are the excotic and legendary ones. Excotics usually have some ability that sets them apart from the legendary items.
Besides weapons and armor you can also get emotes (dances, expressions) for your character, vehicles like a sparrow and a ship. There are different skins for your weapons, shaders for your armor and emblems for your character,
Get ready to grind for your loot. Destiny uses a random generated reward system so you never know what you are going to get.
What can I do in Destiny?
There are a lot of activities in Destiny, the activities fall into 2 categories.
PvE
This is where you take on the I.A. controlled baddies. You can do this alone or with a 3 man fire team (Raids are the exception, for Raids a 6 man fire team is required)
- Story missions Here you play through the main story. Remember that finishing the main story is just the beginning of the game. The real endgame events for PvE are the Raids.
- Patrol Here you roam the different planets, exploring, farming materials and doing missions that are available.
- Strikes 3 man missions where the objective is to kill the end boss.
- Raids (endgame activity). 6 man missions (more on Raids later on).
- Arena These are activities like Prison of Elders where you have to defeat waves of enemies for rewards.
PvP
Here you battle it out with the scariest enemies of all.... other human players.
- The crucible Basic PvP with the usual modes. For example Control (domination), Clash (team deathmatch), Rumble (free for all) and Elimination (last man standing).
- Sparrow racing Racing with you Sparrow (hoover bike)
- Iron banner Monthly PvP event. The PvP mode changes every month
- Trials of Osiris (end game activity) All I can say about Trials is that it is really hard (Just kidding, I will give some more info about Trials in the endgame section) .
Why are we doing all this?
So what is the endgame in Destiny? Well, actually there really isn't one. There are end game activities for PvE (Raids) and PvP (Trials) but in the end it all revolves around the loot, the rewards you get for participating or finishing the activities. You are rewarded with weapons, armor, emotes, materials, emblems, vehicles and currency when playing. These rewards help to make your guardian stronger or give you bragging rights.
For example, finishing Trials of Osiris (which is an accomplishment in its own right) gives you a flawless emblem. When other players see this emblem they know that you are a baddass when it comes to PvP.
Even if you complete the end game activities, chances are you will not stop playing because there is always that elusive piece of armor or weapon that you just have to get.
The Good Stuff
Gameplay
The gameplay in Destiny is topnotch. Bungie have mastered the shooting mechanics. The weapons are for me probably the best thing in Destiny and the reason I kept playing. The weapons have more personality than the characters. The Exotic weapons even have their own back story. Infamous weapons like Thorn and The last Word have a very interesting history. The variety in weapons is destiny is almost incomprehensible, I don't know exactly how many different weapons there are, but rest assured there is a gun in the game that will suit your needs.
Raids and Trials
What also sets Destiny apart are the "endgame" Activities. The Raid for PvE and Trials for PvP. These activities are the reason Destiny has been able to attract gamers for the last 3 years. To participate at Trials or a Raid your character will have be at maximum strength and the strongest and best weapons you can find.
- The Raids
Raids are a six man activity where you have to travel through a maze-like environment riddled with boss encounters and (jumping) puzzles. The boss encounters are not the usual shoot-em-until-they-die affair. You can only kill the bosses using specific mechanics that require the guardians working together and communicating.
For example in the Vault of Glass Raid when you confront the final boss 2 Guardians have to stand near a pillar to keep 2 portals open (the two pillars are at opposite sites of the room). 3 guardians are randomly teleported to another dimension where they have to pick up a relic that can damage the Boss. One of the teleported guardians has to pick up this relic, the other shoot oracles (lights that will kill you if you don't shoot them immediately) while the third has to kill the roaming enemies. The teleported Guardians then have to make their way back through one of the portals (that is being kept open by the other guardians who weren't teleported). When the teleported guardians make their way through the portal, the guardian with the relic can put up a dome. The only way to damage the Boss is to shoot from within the dome. However the dome only lasts for few seconds, after that the whole process needs to be repeated until the boss is defeated.
Sounds easy doesn't it?
Raids are actually fun but if you are not familiar with the Raid you will need a guide to explain the workings. Playing in a six man team means lots of communication and patience.
When a Raid is added to Destiny nothing is told about the mechanics. The players have to figure out themselves how to defeat the bosses The first attempts to finish a Raid can take up to 10 hours.
- Trials
In Destiny you have Trials of Osiris, in Destiny 2 it will be renamed Trials of the nine.
In Trials you form a 3 man fire team (in Destiny 2 most likely this will be a 4 man fire team) for a series of PvP matches against other players. The objective is to kill all your opponents. Killed team mates can be revived allowing your team to come back even if you are the last man standing. The first team to win 5 rounds, wins the match. In order to complete the Trials you need to get 9 wins without losing a match.
Only 1% of the Destiny players has been able to complete Trials with a "Flawless" run (as it is called). Others, like myself just play Trials for the rewards.
Freedom
The good thing about Destiny is that you are free to play whatever activities you like. I myself enjoy PvP a lot, while others enjoy Patrol or strikes or Raids. You can try out all the activities and settle on those you enjoy the most.
Timed Events
Destiny has a lot of timed events. These are activities that pop up from time to time and only last for predetermined period. Examples are Trials (weekly event, starts Friday until Tuesday), Iron Banner (monthly event, available for one week), Festival of the light (yearly event, during Halloween).
DLC
Wait, what, DLC is a good thing? Yes, in this case it is. Bungie has used DLC to actually improve the game. All I can say is that they succeeded. At the moment there is so much content in the game that it is almost overwhelming. Besides adding content, they made changes to the game to make sure the game is really balanced. They also improved the story telling so that it feels like the game has more "character"".
It is rumored that Bungie intentionally left out parts of the game only to add it later in the form of DLC. Whether this is true or not is impossible to say
Co-op
There are 2 ways of co-op available in Destiny. You either put a fire team together with your (online) friend and clan mates or matchmaking. With matchmaking the game automatically matches you with two random guardians. This makes it easy to go lone-wolf or party with your friends.
In Destiny 2 things will be even better with an in-game looking for group function
Things gone awry
Bungie did not explain a lot about Destiny. They told the community that they wanted the gamers (or guardians as they call the gamers who play Destiny) to figure everything out by themselves. It was supposed to be a journey in which the gamer had to explore and figure out the inner workings of the game.
This was not a smart move on the part of Bungie. The game is so different from other games that it is very hard to find you way. There is no explanation about how you are supposed to play the game. what the different modes are, how the ranking system works etc.
After we played through the story missions and defeated what we thought was the final boss, my friends left the game and went on to play FIFA which had just come out. As we saw it we had completed the game and there was nothing more to do than PvP and replaying missions. However later I found out that this was actually just the beginning of the game.
Why you should care about Destiny 2
PC gamers and Console gamers who left Destiny without really understanding the game might have a wrong impression of what Destiny is really about. There were certainly things that were not well received from the first game but Bungie actually listened to the Community and changed a lot of things around.
Most importantly for Destiny 2 Bungie decided to hit the reset button. All the weapons, gear, everything from Destiny 1 will be left behind. This makes it possible to completely right the wrongs.
Bungie has learned from their mistakes, that is also apparant in the latest DLC's, the Taken King en Rise of Iron.
PC gamers especially are going to be in for a treat. They will have the best version of the game, Hosted by Battlenet, 4K graphics and uncapped FPS, all the things the console gamers are dying to have.
To round things off, here is some gameplay of me being awesome in PvP.
@xervantes/e3-destiny-2-update
@xervantes/destiny-gameplay
sources/links
http://destinytimeline.com/
