Bungie’s Destiny 2 is in full swing and coming up on its first weekly reset tomorrow. We decided to complete as much of this game as we could before we did our review, as there is a lot going on. Below, you will see the opinion’s of two writers, as well as an overview for Destiny 2:
Story
The story of Destiny 2 is about a power hungry, cabal lord, named Gauhl. He seeks to take the Traveler’s light and attaches a machine to it to extract it ([spoiler]which is successful[/spoiler]). Since we are not going to ruin the story for anyone, we will not mention any further details.
Overview
Bungie did make some needed quality of life changes to Destiny 2 that really help its overall feel. These adjustments seem simple, but they really do make the game way easier to maneuver and enjoy:
- The number one improvement made is the fancy new Fast Travel option you have while putting around on destinations. Getting to Public Events and just basic traveling is much easier.
- Public events are actually useful and give you tokens that you can hand in to all the “vendors” on each planet. Events also have a chance to give you higher gear, legendary engrams, and exotic engrams (if the event is turned into a Heroic Public Event your chances of getting an exotic are increased).
- Tokens, which you receive from doing Public Events, Side Missions, killing a High-Value Target, finishing a Patrol, completing a daily Challenge on a planet, doing Strikes, or completing a match in Crucible, can level up your reputation with all the vendors. Leveling up each vendor will net you some legendary gear and most likely bump your light level.
- Another much needed addition, is the ability to vault an object after you’ve jumped. You don’t need to press a button to vault, if you are close to an edge your character will automatically vault up.
Ivana’s View
Though I played Destiny like it was a religion, Destiny 2 is only slight upgrade from the original. It is still very playable and has that original feel that Destiny did, but the grind is almost a nuisance. Even with the upgraded Public Events and the various Strikes in the playlist, it still makes the game too much about those two things. Or you can go grind your life away in the Crucible, which isn’t something I wouldn’t recommend, because it takes too long to level Shaxx’s Reputation.

The easiest way to level your gear after getting hitting level 20 is to go to each of the separate destinations, Earth (European Dead Zone aka. EDZ), Titan, Nessus, or Io, and level up the reputation of each vendor there. I don’t like that you have to go to each different vendor in their separate place to give them their Tokens. You should be able to level up these factions without having to travel to them. You can also level up the Vanguard by doing Strikes in the playlist. Each time you level them up, you will get legendary gear and eventually you will be high enough light level to get into the Nightfall.
The Nightfall itself was a real pain, even with the great Fireteam we had here at Fix The Meta. According to Bungie this first Nightfall was bugged, where the Prism (which rotates the burn during the strike) was broken. You can read more about that here. We did manage to get through it before Bungie fixed the Nightfall, so screw that Strike, we win.
Another problem that seemed to plague us, was the various missions, challenges, Public Events, Adventures and Lost Sectors we could do. There was so much to do alongside story missions, that we eventually abandoned the extras and just went for the story. There were Adventures right at the beginning when you are in early levels, but it becomes very time consuming to do so many. These Adventures don’t wield you anything that you can’t get anywhere else, faster. Other than that, just getting distracted by Public Events and HVT is pretty easy when you know you have a chance of getting gear you need at any level. They also have special side quests for weapons that require you to do the same old crap that the original Destiny did. Shoot some enemies or go on some long tedious quest.
The rest of Destiny 2 feels like Destiny. The guns act the same. The armor is slightly different from the original, especially in the way you infuse it. Armor that has a 5 armor defense or 10 armor defense, you have to take into account, when infusing. Your Ghost no longer counts towards your Light level, but they do help you with certain things, like finding Loot Boxes easier on the EDZ. You don’t need to level up your weapons anymore, which is amazing. Weapons have also been changed to Kinetic as Primary, Energy as Secondary, and Power as your last weapon.
In Destiny 2 you can’t give yourself more mobility, recovery or resilience through your class setup, only your gear. This is very irritating, considering the gear doesn’t always give you what you need. Tess Everis does have gear mods that can give you 5 or 10 defense on your gear, as well as mods that give you a higher recharge rate for every subclasses. As far as subclasses go, the only real change is now you have to choose from a set of four “Attunements”, one on top and one on bottom. For example:
All and all, Destiny 2 is alright. It’s not going to blow your socks off and I could definitely live without the story, but it’s not a bad game. If you like the grind of the RPG, then you will enjoy spending time countless hours trying to acquire the gear needed to get into the Raid. Destiny 2 still shares the great gameplay from Destiny and if you enjoyed the first one, the second one will fall right into place.
Taco’s View
Having spent way too much damn time playing Destiny 1, I pretty much knew what to expect from Destiny 2. The core gameplay hasn’t changed much so you will slide right back into form. The story was good in my opinion, though some parts could of been told better. There are quite a few Quest and Adventures to do on top of the usual patrols and the Redwar Campaign/Story missions. Strikes in Destiny 2 are not included during the story, They are only available via a playlist after you have unlocked them with the vanguards.
I have spent a fair amount of time in D2’s crucible, I really have enjoyed it. The 4v4 matches I have played in have been pretty lag free on my end and were exciting and competitive for the most part. I hated the crucible in D1 and also in the beta for D2, I was pleasantly surprised that when I went into the crucible for a milestone quest, It was very enjoyable and I will probably be playing it more down the road.
Ivana and I both share a lot of opinions about Destiny 2 but overall we both like it and most of the changes that were made. The Nightfall was actually frustrating me because of the rotating elemental burns and very short on screen notification. Bungie has said it was fixed. Reset is in a few hours from now. I guess we will see.
The Bottom Line
If you liked Destiny, than Destiny 2 is a slightly better version of is predecessor. The story was decent, but lacked something that truly made it look as grand as it did back at E3. It could have been the long missions, with no strikes (or anything) to break up the monotony.
However, past the story are four spacious destinations to roam, where you have a number of activities to complete to level up Faction vendors, and get that glorious loot. Like any RPG it’s all about the loot and levels. If you’re into the daily grind, shooters, RPG’s, or all of the above (especially if you played the original) Destiny 2 is worth the pick-up.