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Examining my love for Destiny 2 (A Rant)

So I guess I logged a lot of hours into Destiny 2 last year...

According to Playstation’s 2019 Wrap Up, I kind of fell back in love with Destiny last year and I have thoughts on why. This is by no means a comprehensive list of reasons to play Bungie’s fantastic space based looter shooter, it’s just me trying to figure out why Destiny 2 was my most played game of 2019.

My History with Destiny

During Playstation’s 2013 E3 press-conference, I was exposed to the glorious Destiny gameplay-demo. It teased the social elements of an MMO packaged as an expertly crafted first-person-shooter (FPS) experience, all brought to me by one of the most exciting developers in the business, Bungie.

“The guns have names and power levels,” I thought, “I’m in.”  

I purchased the Digital Deluxe Guardian Edition or whatever it was called (the first time I’d ever bought any kind of special edition for a game), and upon release I was almost immediately disappointed. I beat the main campaign in one sitting and felt the ending was underwhelming to say the least. The early days of Destiny were confusing as all hell and frankly, a little dry in the content department. I played a lot of Crucible, but other than that, I never really played through strikes or most of the PVE content in general once I beat the jumbled main story. At the time, I didn’t see the point of logging in, so I didn’t. I put away my Warlock Bonds and stopped playing entirely. And then Shadowkeep happened.  

Enter Shadowkeep

I jumped back in with the Shadowkeep expansion and New Light revamp. Bungie’s tweaks and updates to the game really reinforced the idea that “the world of Destiny” is alive and it will move on with our without me. Main characters have died in my absence. Fallen heroes have been resurrected. The Traveler is broken now? And also sticky portal monsters are a thing. I decided to jump back in, intrigued and hype as all hell.

I still have a lot of catching up to do lore wise, but I’m actually excited to experience it. I’ve loved diving into the robust and so-far extremely friendly Destiny community on Youtube and Reddit, so I know my questions will have answers. The overarching story in Shadowkeep -in addition to the smaller, character-focused quests (like last week’s Devil’s Ruin Exotic Quest)- keep me in the loop way more than Destiny 1’s Grimoire cards ever did.

Destiny in 2020

In terms of “What to do” in Destiny 2, it can be initially overwhelming, but here are the basics:

The Playlists

There are three basic game modes presented as “Playlists”: Strikes, Crucible, and Gambit. These playlists serve as quick and easy “Jump right in”-style fun, catered toward cooperative, competitive, and...Gambit (Destiny’s unique mix of co-op and competitive gameplay). If you want a more chill experience, you can explore or patrol the solar system. In between shooting sessions, you’ll meet your friends, organize loadouts, and talk to bounty vendors at The Tower, Destiny 2’s social hub.

The Tower

In concert with these game modes, you’ll complete daily and weekly bounties obtained from vendors across the multi-planetary map and The Tower. Bounties might task you with using a certain weapon-type, killing a particular boss, collecting specific materials or performing different in-game activities. Once bounties are complete, you can redeem valuable currency, or engrams (Destiny’s randomized loot drops). In addition to bounties, you have the opportunity to acquire and complete meatier quests for more specific, powerful rewards. Quests come in multiple steps that can be as simple as finding specific items in the world to completing the most challenging activities in the game. They come in a wide variety of both difficulty and time consumption, but the rewards have been worth it so far.

The Loop(s)

The gameplay balances the box-checking nature of quests and bounties with great space-shooter gameplay to establish a loop that is both addicting, and rewarding. For example:

Lets say you just got a handful of daily bounties and a few weeklies. You need to get 10 kills with a hand cannon, 10 kills with a solar weapon, and 10 kills in the Crucible. Play one game of Crucible with a solar hand cannon, get 10 kills and you just completed three bounties. Before you head back to the Tower , you’ll realize you need to complete one more bounty for the weekly quest so you play “just one more game” to complete “ just one more bounty” and now it’s 3 in the morning and you have a slew of new gear you just have to try out, and thus the cycle continues.

This extends to the moment-to-moment gameplay as well, it’s not just “shoot the bad guys.” Guardians have special abilities according to their class (Hunter, Warlock and Titan) as well as their elemental subclass (Solar, Arc and Void). Even within those subclasses, there are branching ability trees with different playstyles. Want to fly around and rain fire from the sky? Go top-tree Dawnblade. Want to be a spirit-bombing vampire? Go bottom-tree Voidwalker. Balancing ability cooldowns with gear upgrades makes every second of gameplay count. Throw in some environmental puzzles and some floaty platforming and you’ve got Destiny in a nutshell.

Here’s to another 93 hours

The constant loop of long-form quests, quick-bounties, and an ever-flowing stream of loot keeps me engaged more than any other game on the market. There’s a lot to do without a specific goal in mind, and it doesn't even take into account quests for exotic weapons and armor pieces, story specific events, raids, and seasonal events. There is so much to do in Destiny it’s almost impossible to get bored. Tied together with Bungie’s excellent shooting mechanics and “space-magic” vibe, Destiny 2 is going to continue to take up way too much of my time and I am totally okay with that.

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Jackal’s Voyage

I’m not scared of death, and that scares me.  Herald of oblivion, a mine with no canary  I’m bleeding in the cranium, my body’s growing wary.  The only other people in the room, I need to bury. Sparks rain down and brain melts into the drain. Hull’s cracked wide as my first mate’s skull.  Drown as I may, Oh! How my lungs know pain as I  curse my god and I breath his blood.   As I lie, open red eyes, all allies defeated  Slip from the light of my divine right, beneath it  I apologize to those I’ve led into Glorious oblivion,  True explorers of the medium  turned victims of the media.  Eat me if I ever feed to the generic tedium.  We are only agents in existence when we’re free of it. 

Reminisce on childhood, nostalgia is a curse as I decay into a corpse, remaining a puppet to the purse.  If I had the gasoline I’d douse the world and burn it all. Let the generations from the ashes grow and try to learn. 

We’re all mortal, so tell me the point  I’m born to a world that I must disappoint  My vessel, Decaying, sails onward to Hades and strain every muscle to muster a voice.