A few quests are almost exactly the same, the enemies are mostly the same as the original, and there’s a ton of re-used assets and re-used areas even within scenarios unique to Destiny 2 (the Nightfall for the first week is almost entirely re-purposed hub zones).
You’re still going to get a few low points just like the first, there’s no escaping that. Every performance, including Lance Reddick’s Zavala and Nathan Fillion’s Cayde-6, feel less phoned in, and some of the newcomers have already cemented their place in the Destiny universe. Sure it might basically be a re-telling of several Star Wars beats, but it’s easy to follow and even easier to get invested in, with the game’s cast coming front and center. It took years, but they’re pretty close to getting balance right.Įven the story has more panache, which mostly works in its favor. The end result is that everyone has more utility, and there’s less room for cookie-cutter builds (though they’ll still exist when the raid rolls around). Instead of sticking with a tried and true subclass, I loved experimenting with all three for Warlock, Titan, and Hunter, trying new combos out with friends and trying to synergize class abilities. General tweaks have been made that place an emphasis on just roaming around and having fun, and are akin to Blizzard’s lauded complete rework of Diablo III with “Loot 2.0.” While doing patrols in the past and happening upon public events that you’d find off of a third-party website felt like a tedious grind in the first game, now it’s desirable (and visible on-screen), both in terms of loot and for showing off where the game nails it the most - combat.Įverything is flashier and more functional in Destiny 2. The chief improvement in the sequel is that Bungie went out of its way to make everything less of a chore. What we actually ended up getting was a very strong shooter with a weak RPG backbone, a foundation that was slowly built up over the course of several years.ĭestiny 2 still isn’t the game that was described to us ages ago when the hype train began, but at this point, it’s good enough if you’re looking for an action shooter. The hype was astronomical, and the first preview event didn’t even have a playable build. Bungie kind of promised the world when it gave us the original Destiny.