Destiny 2 review: Some things are just meant to be

The Last City on earth has fallen to the Red Legion – a new, powerful and merciless army of many different races, led by the intimidating Dominus Ghaul. Once the Legion takes control on The Traveler, the connection between the Guardians and the Light is severed, and their abilities disappear. Here is where we come in, in an attempt to retake what was lost to the Red Legion.

This is how Destiny 2 begins, and even though the premise is still fairly familiar, you’re in for a great gaming experience.

The plot is by far one of Destiny 2’s strongest aspects, which is quite the change from the previous game in the series. The twists and turns keep on coming, and the main villain turns out to be a deep, rounded character that deserves as much screen time as it can get. The old trope of losing all your abilities a few minutes into the game works rather well here. It gives you the perfect chance to experience what your character can be, given enough time.

The same 3 character classes make a return: Titan, Hunter and Warlock. However, they each have a new subclass. Skill trees are now simpler and easier to navigate, and you can use them to choose the type of grenade, jumps and special attacks your Guardian will use. It’s enough to make each subclass feel different, since you can emphasize the aspects you prefer in a character.

Once you choose your class, you can move on to the character creation itself. Here, we have the same 3 races as before: Human, Awoken and Exo. Apart from race, you can personalize your character’s face based on 7 presets. It’s all very standard, with skin color, lips, eyes, bad hairdos and weird makeup. This isn’t a very impressive character creation system, and it lacks any real depth. On the bright side, it means you won’t spend hours upon hours preparing your character, and you get to the action quicker. On the not-so-bright side, giving you a little bit more personalization options could have helped us feel more connected to the character we just created.

The fact that every piece of dialog is delivered by our Ghost and not our character also doesn’t help things. I know it was like that in the previous game as well, but it creates the feeling that we are just “along for the ride” when it comes to the story.

Luckily, there’s still plenty of action to help us feel useful. Enemies are around every corner, and you’ll find yourself going from one battle to then next without wanting to stop. The combat system is pretty much the same as it was in Destiny, and for a good reason – if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

What did change is the weapons system. The original Destiny only let us carry one weapon in each category- primary, secondary and heavy. But Destiny 2 categorizes  weapons based on the type of damage they do – kinetic, energy and power. That means you can carry 3 weapons of the same type, as long as they deal a different type of damage. Sure, some weapon like shotguns or rocket-launchers, tend to fall into a specific damage-type, but you still have more wiggle room to adjust your loadout than before There are plenty of weapons to choose from, either. From grenade launchers to swords, Destiny 2 packs every type of weapon you can think of.

Visually, the sequel looks much better, with detailed environments and a richer color palette. Even if this isn’t the best-looking game you’ll see this year, it still has its fair share of eye candy. Maps stretch over a variety of landscapes, from a ruined city to its overgrown outskirts; From up in space, all the way down to underground catacombs. Each map is highly detailed and fun to explore, even if you don’t really interact with the environment all that much.

Destiny was all about playing with others, and Destiny 2 is no different. You will go on missions with friends, or join complete strangers to fend off waves of enemies in mini-events that pop up on your map. The open world transitions smoothly between solo missions and multiplayer events, and you can spend hours in one map without going through one loading screen.

The competitive multiplayer is also top notch and almost addictive. The game feels well-balanced, and it is really up to skill to determine the winner, and not a certain class or loadout. One of the more obvious chances is the number of players per match. Every PvP mode now supports 2 grops of 4 players each. This means matches are faster and shorter, so you can just keep playing match after match. The UI is also better, and you get much more useful information during the match, like who’s still alive, when your teammates can use their special abilities, and more.

There’s a new PvP mode to try out – Countdown. In this mode, one team needs to plant a bomb, while the other must defuse it before time runs out. It’s a familiar mode we’ve seen in countless other online games, but Destiny 2 manages to put is own twist on it, and keep it interesting.

As you might have noticed, it’s difficult not to talk or think about the original Destiny when playing Destiny 2. It’s even harder not to notice how the sequel surpasses its predecessor in almost every way. It’s clear Bungie took the time to implement the lessons they learned during the last 3 years, and to make sure Destiny 2 unlocks the series’ full potential. Overall it’s a great game and lives up to all expectations. The only weak point is the failure to create any real connection between players and their character, but very few multiplayer games manage that. The plot is still good, though I’d wish we had more opportunities to interact with it directly.

I really liked Destiny, but I love Destiny 2. I highly recommend it to anyone who still plays Destiny, as well as fans of shooters in general. It has almost everything you’d want for such a game, starting with a good story and ending with intense multiplayer action.