Destiny 2 – A PC Beta Experience

Like many, when the first Destiny came out back in 2014 I was blown away by the looks of it and all the possible chances for adventure that it promised. And it was great, for a while. The main problem with the original game was that it was geared towards team/group play. Unless, like me, you could find a group that wasn’t filled with gear elitists, or those that cried you hadn’t done enough to be experienced with all of its mechanics and therefore not a waste of their time, you could only go so far and do so much solo. I reached that point and eventually gave up trying to get involved in these things.

But Destiny 2 is nearly upon us, and it’s promising a big shake up of that experience.

The developers have heard the cries of the solo players. To paraphrase the guard of the Emerald City in the Wizard of Oz, Destiny 2 is a horse of a different colour. Story missions will take the player on a journey through the game, learning lore and accessing things like the Sparrow bike for transport around in the world, which by the way is a lot bigger than that of the first game.

It’s certainly going to be an improvement in how things are learned within the game. In Destiny, you learned the lore and history from grimoire cards. Now you can learn all this by doing a side or story mission and can have a more fun experience uncovering all this material. Find an NPC within the world and you can start a side mission if you are clever enough to find it.

Be on the lookout for symbols hidden with structures or around the landscape. You may be on the verge of finding an entrance to what’s known as a lost sector. Loot aplenty taunts you from within its depths, so long as you are brave enough to venture into the dungeon. Weekly events will be up for all to try and although there will no doubt be others trying to succeed in them too, the rewards for completion will be well worth the effort.

The other, and arguably the biggest improvement this time around, is that the Destiny franchise is finally coming to the PC gaming world (pauses for the cheers of gamers around the world to fall silent).

The beta has done an amazing job of showing what we are in for. 60 frames a second, 4k display…I got to experience it and, well, just…wow. The game looks beautiful.

The available demo level really throws you in at the deep end. The world Destiny players knew from before has been blown away by a new and menacing enemy. You begin in the ruins of the once famous Tower and encounter some old friends such as Cayde, the wise cracking Hunter Vanguard voiced by the excellent Nathan Fillion. Your ghost is there right alongside you (R.I.P. Dinklebot – we shall miss you always) as you fight your way through to the conclusion, and it’s still only a taster of what is going to be in the full release come October.

So much is shown on screen that I ended up playing through it 3 times each with a different character class, just so I could drink it all in. And even after those 3 run-throughs I gave it another go.

Overall, Destiny 2 is a much more open and friendly experience to solo players. After jumping in on the early access beta, I am certainly looking forward to the full release. Nearly all of the past issues with the first game seem to have been corrected and that really does bode well for Destiny 2. Gone are the hard times of finding a group to team up with for a raid. Now guilds can be made up to have 100 members so finding some similarly levelled and geared friends to team up with will make things a lot easier and fun for all concerned.

Of course it will have some issues on the first few days of release with everyone trying to join in at the same time. Some basement trolls will rear their ugly heads and moan ‘Destiny 2 sucks…we can’t even log in and play!’, but come on… This happens with most AAA titles out there and it should be expected to some degree.

I for one will be in this for one hell of a try when it comes out, and from the chatter within a few Discord channels and streams I moderate, it already looks like there are quite a few of us that will be teaming up to explore the world of Destiny 2. If this game delivers all it is promising, I’m pretty certain this game could be a real contender come the yearly game awards.

I shall now go hibernate till October 24th, which is when this little beauty arrives. If you don’t see me or hear of me online after that then you can be certain where to find me. Just hunt around in the European Dead Zone on Earth, and pray I don’t find you first if you see me in a PVP battle. But ignore that last bit…I suck at PVP.