Introduction

Destiny 2, in my opinion is one of the most enjoyable co-op First-Person shooters out there. Each aspect, ranging from movement, gunplay, abilities, environment, sound, design are incredibly well polished and have a touch of brilliance to it. That being said, let’s dive into some details.

Story

Destiny 2 is a direct successor to the console game Destiny. The Black Garden has been discovered, Crota and Oryx have been slain, SIVA was released and contained.
Destiny 2 initially began with our guardian returning to the tower to find it under siege by an alien race called the Cabal. We make our way, fighting through the tower and make our way to the Red Legion command ship to take out the cabal leader. However, we are drained off our powers in the process and tossed off the ship. This campaign was a story of us reuniting the guardian leadership called vanguard, slowly regaining our powers, and fighting the cabal.
However, with the release of Beyond Light DLC, the earlier stories were wiped from the game, and the start of destiny 2 was instead replaced by the same mission that was played in the start of destiny.
To me, the story of destiny 2 was always a mixed bag. As someone new to the destiny franchise, Red War kept me hooked on as I was excited to learn about the enemy races, the vanguard and bringing down the antagonist who tried to steal our powers. However, when it comes to Curse of Osiris and Warmind DLCs, the story was never engaging. I never felt a real threat, or any emotional connection to what was happening. That all took a turn in Forsaken DLC, when Bungie killed off one of the most fan favorite characters. Forsaken had an amazing story behind it, and it really created an emotional draw to play through it. Shadowkeep played a huge part in the story of Destiny to come, as it laid down the foundations for the current DLC, Beyond Light.

Gameplay

Destiny 2 has the classic MMO experience, with the player receiving the choice between three classes - Hunter, Warlock and Titan. Each class has 4 elemental subclasses – Void, Arc, Solar and Stasis. Each subclass has 3 further trees, each changing the type of grenade, melee, and the super ability. Each class has two unique class abilities, the hunter receiving two different dodges, warlock receiving two different healing/buffing rifts, and the titans having two types of barricades.
The primary PvE content apart from the story missions, were 3 player co-op activities called strikes. Strikes were usually new content, but what really put me off at times was the fact that many of the strikes were just the story missions. For example, the final mission of the Warmind DLC, was put up as a strike, which in my opinion was not a good move, considering the game has a mode called Daily Heroic Mission, which would take one story mission each day, and make it available for play at a higher difficulty.
The PvP mode was in an arena called the Crucible, which had a good lore set behind it. However, the mode itself was always surrounded in a lot of disapprovals. The anti-cheat is almost nonexistent, with people rampantly cheating without any consequences. However, in the recent months, Bungie has been hammering down on cheats more effectively, having presented the primary cheat distributor with a cease and desist, and working on the anti-cheat system on the backend. PvP was often shrouded in a lot of disappointment, because to balance the sandbox, a lot of nerfs were dished out, but that also resulted in nerfs to the PvE sandbox, which a lot of players were disappointed about.
The pièce de resistance of the destiny franchise were the raids. No game that has attempted raids had ever come in contest of the destiny raids. Raids were 6 player co-op activities, which were the pinnacle of destiny challenges. These activities consist of some of the most challenging puzzles, bosses, and mechanics. Each raid on launch, is accompanied by a world’s first raid race, and a day 1 raid clear challenge. These challenges, in my opinion are some of the best challenges you can try to compete in destiny. I personally took part in the raid race for Deep Stone Crypt (the newest raid), and it was an unforgettable experience. The sense of achievement after brainstorming challenges, and perfecting mechanics for over 12 hours at a stretch was unparalleled in terms of gaming experiences.

Gunplay

Destiny 2, being an FPS game, relies heavily around how the gunplay is, and this is an aspect that they have absolutely nailed. The gunplay, and the ‘pop’ from enemies dying feel immensely satisfying. There is always a type of gun for any player out there, comprising of auto-rifles, submachine guns, hand cannons, scout rifles, sniper rifles, swords, fusion rifles, grenade launchers, rocket launchers, sidearms and more. The guns rely on a perk pool, which distinguishes one gun from the other. Many guns belong to the rarity class called ‘Exotic’, and have special intrinsic perks, all to themselves which help make the gun unique. The perk system is really well defined, and is a huge part of the satisfying user experience that this game delivers.

Graphics

Destiny 2 has stunning visuals, and surprisingly low technical requirements for the graphics it presents you with. The game has a beautiful icy world in Europa, where you can see a beautiful Jovian Eclipse if you’re patient enough. It has wastelands in the cosmodrome, which captures the post-apocalyptic theme very well. In almost every situation, destiny has the perfect atmosphere, which really captures your attention and completely engrosses you in the gameplay. Scary hive consumed depths of the moon have shadows of hive thresh crawling over the walls, the paths near the Scarlet keep completely engulfed by nightmares. The planet Titan has immeasurable amounts of methane all around, and if you’re brave enough to go through the depths of the facility, you could see the silhouette of the monsters that lurked in it. Earth had the reminiscence of the golden age, as it is called in destiny. Broken technology spewed all around the different explorable zones made up a lot of the aesthetics of the cosmodrome.

Audio

No matter the state of destiny, whether the game is struggling in content or not, one thing that is always top tier was the music in destiny. This game has some of the most amazing soundtracks ever created. Michael Salvatori often outdid himself with creation of music like ‘Deep Stone Lullaby’ (my personal favorite) and ‘Journey’. Layered sound was a method that was heavily utilized in this game, to create perfect atmospheres, no matter the situation. The audio really made you feel strong when it should have, made you feel loss when it should, made you feel proud when it should, and everything in between.

Conclusion
While destiny 2 is not perfect, it still cemented itself as one of my all-time favorite games. There is always something engaging to do in the game, and there is always something for you, no matter your interests. The game has an outstanding community management team behind it, that listens to their crowd, and implements the changes they desire. For me, this game is the perfect live service looter-shooter, and no game would ever come close to it. I would give this game a solid 9/10.