A Destiny Veteran’s Impressions of the Destiny 2 Beta

Firstly, I have to admit to being a Destiny player from Closed beta, I’ve logged hundreds of hours in the game. And so I approached Destiny 2 with a bit of a jaded eye. I was pleasantly surprised at what was to come, this being my first chance to play Bungie’s much-anticipated sequel.

For me playing D2 was a bit of a quantum shift I was switching from playing D1 on Ps4 to my gaming PC. The first thing I thought was… will my rig run this? I run an i5 3330 3.0 GHz with a GTX960 and 8gb of 1600mhz of RAM. I’m middle of the road as far as gaming PCs go now. So I intrepidly set my settings to high and hoped for the best.

I started with the intro mission and I completed it in roughly 22 minutes. Going from PS4 controller to keyboard and mouse, I thought I would run into problems – I was deeply surprised that A: it looked beautiful and B: keyboard and mouse were just fine and at home for playing Destiny.

Jumping into the intro mission, we are greeting with lots of very cool cut scenes. The narrative very capably carries you over from D1, and at the same time explaining to new players to the franchise what and who was who, so I was impressed with that. There’s obviously a lot of attention paid to the story, after the original game’s critiques.

For the opening mission, I picked a Titan.  Yes, I love Titans, I’ll admit it.  Some of the new abilities are very cool. The explanation and guides from your little floaty friend are almost identical to D1 but in more detail. The UI, in general, remains the same, just with the quality of life improvements that make the experience much more pleasant.

I have to admit there are a lot of similarities between D2 and D1, which explains why so many have called Destiny 2 more of a “big expansion” or “reset” than a true sequel. The story missions work just like the D1 incarnations, old hands will find it the same but shinier and more in depth in terms of mechanics. For new players, lots of fun cool storyline and some banging cut scenes will draw you into the world quickly.

I can say as an old hand going from PS4 to PC gaming in the Destiny universe is well worth it, and if you’re not comfortable with keyboard and mouse you can jack in a game pad of your choice. On the whole, just playing the first mission sold me on Destiny 2 is what I expected and does what it says on the tin. The real question is what comes when we get the full game. How will the new open world zones play? What will Destiny 2 above its forebear to keep players going?

Then I played the strike, and again if you’re a D1 player it will feel very familiar, again adding to the lore and story of the Destiny universe, oh and yeah much shinier!

Gameplay is almost identical to D1, Accept the AI is a lot cleverer than D1. What I noticed off the bat was the AI was unpredictable which was great and the boss was no push over yes, my team died several times but had a blast doing it. The strikes definitely seem a step up from the past game if this is an indication. No more zombie AI – you will get your butt kicked as they use tactics. The rewards are similar to what you would get in D1 so no surprise there – see the picture above.

I was pretty happy with what I got, even if it’s just a demo.

As for the PvP, I have to say they seem to have just ported over D1 PvP, insert large hand pistol and you insta-die. What I will say it was still fun, mechanics are slightly different in what you gain (capping) and how quick you capture points. I only hope I see the handgun go the way of the dodo as its very very annoying to see it dominate.

Oh and even if you lose you get a goody!  Yes, my team did that poorly (see above again). I have to say, if you enjoyed D1 then D2 is a must have, and it’s looking like it will have the same replayability as D1. New players, and there will be many on PC, will soon see why millions still play the original. Enjoy and Fight Well Guardian.