I’ve been playing Destiny 2 for 2 years, with Destiny 1 for a few years before that. So why haven’t done a review of it yet. Destiny 2 made it to both 2017 and 2018‘s Top ten games I played lists. For this review, I’ll be covering each DLC separately.

Launch “Base” Game – “The Red War”

This was the first game that was built for the Playstation 4 and X-box One, without the limits of the outgoing PS3 and Xbox 360. They chose to reset everything by having the big bad destroy our home base from the first game, then lock us our of super powers. That is of course after a Taste of the one of the returning Super powers we would unlock again later. The Big Bad in this case was the Cabal’s Red Legion with their leader Gaul.

The Red War story line itself while entertaining for the first few playthoughs, with the main storyline ended with us clearly beating Gaul. The ending showed a hint but very little seen of the new enemies seen since.

With the Threat of Gaul gone, there was little drive to do go what to next: I felt like I was done during by October, there was a lack of things to chase. I had the Platinum, The gear didn’t have random rolls, so duplicates where only useful to boost the power level of other gear, or to be trashed.

The Raid from a story point, felt like it was tacked on, and only adding a tedious link with a optional mission, to provide any link to the raid.

The “Dual Primary” setup, which forced many of the Special weapon in the Heavy slot hindered it. As most people had to decide between Shotgun, a Sniper or Rocket Launcher. The main two slots felt very samey, with very little choice to go between them.

Curse of Osiris

In Destiny 1 and in the base game of Destiny 2, there were references to the former Vanguard Commander, a Warlock called Osiris. Most of the talk was about that he was one of the most powerful Guardians around. During a large part of Destiny 1 there was weekly PvP competition called Trials of Osiris. This was considered the Pinnacle of PvP competition.

Like the base game, once we had completed the main story, we had done most of the content. It felt worse as the new Repeatable Strikes was more or less repeated versions of the story missions. And to make matters worse, the big ticket item, exploring the Infinite Forest ended up being only available during mission that require you to travel though it. So at the end the effective area in the Post game was tiny, many of the new missions required us to do patrols in other Areas.

The Raid Lair on the other hand was received alot better, partly as it was a shorten version of a standard Raid. For most of Year 1, this was our standard area to go. Due to how often I did this Raid Lair, I learned to run each role reasonably well.

They introduced a new mechanic, Weapon Masterworks. This allowed a player who got multiple kills in quick succession to generate an orb of light. Orbs of Light could be used to power up a players super. This actually gave drive to some players to find Masterworked Weapons, or the components to covert any Legendary Weapon they own in a Masterworked version.

Some of the issues, that I raised back in 2017’s Top 10 such as ability to reclaim items has been rectified due to changes that Forsaken update brought to all players.

As the 2017’s Top was written over Xmas of that year, the issues with Curse of Osiris was clear in my mind which force Destiny 2 to be as low as 10 in that years list.

Warmind

The Final Year 1 release took it’s time, but then alot of complaints about Curse of Osiris forced Bungie to rethink parts of the game. The New Patrol area was alot bigger and had several things to challenge. It also had the place to run Escalation Protocol, which resulted in players getting some the best loot added to the game.

The story went past way too quickly. We had fought, according to the lore, two top tier enemies of the Hive, with Nocris, the son of Oryx, and Brother of Crota, and a Hive God Xol. In Destiny 1, we had to 6 man raid to beat Oryx and Crota. But in this case, it was one guy beating them quite clearly. The story didn’t even make it clear why these there a big deal, unlike their Destiny 1 family members. The one of characters that was introduced was also known in the lore, and we had to rely on a comic to explain her apparent “death,” and why she was on Mars Looking for Old Computer system called Rasputin. Nor was it made clear who or what Rasputin was other than a “Warmind.”

The missions where two Hives bosses appeared we’re reused for Strikes, and to make it worse, the only completely new strike was for PS4 players until late 2018. However, the post game content had you looking in most nooks and crannies of the new map. The addition of new loot that was wanted resulted alot of playing trying to get the new loot.

The new gear that was added featured some of the best weapons weapons in the game. The New exotics actually felt better but there was more. The Weapon Masterwork system was extended to Exotic weapons, which was falling out of favour due the ability to carry 3 weapons that generated orbs on demand. Unlike Standard weapons, you had the find that weapons Catalyst. Certain catalysts could only drop in certain locations, and then required a player to complete certain task or two using that weapon. The Masterwork system even got added to armor, but I couldn’t really tell you if it did anything.

I actually was playing Destiny 2 almost to the release of Forsaken. (I was force to take few week break due to things outside the game, on the first weeks of the season.)

Final Thoughts on Year 1 (from Year 2)

Bungie had the basis of a good game, but with “locked rolls” many hardcore players ran out of things to chase. This is no longer the case, with most gear dropped after Forsaken now have random rolls. All the original locked roll weapons either still drop, or were time limited and only available for player got the items during the release.

The story content of the original game and it’s DLC where complete stories. While there nothing wrong with that, for a game that was hinted to be a MMO there was little desire to continue on.

The issues with the reworked strikes forced Bungie to make all new strikes, not making a few changes and calling it day. While one of the Forsaken strikes follows the same path in the same location, they altered the encounters so didn’t feel like a rework of existing content. Back in Destiny 1, I often spent a most night running strikes, partly to get the good loot, and partly as they where actually decent repeatable content. It also helped that there where already large number of strikes available.

The Pre-Warmind quest and bounty system took weapon and Armor slots from character. While this was fine some exotic weapons, that a solo player could do, it was a pain for those who couldn’t get a team together to get tow This got changed for Warmind, with Density 1 style Bounties being properly added in Forsaken.

All images where taken from Video intended for the Taken Wolves of Felwinter Clan Youtube Channel.