Preview: Destiny 2

Bungie seems determined to solve all the problems that have popped up during the first Destiny’s tenure. That includes story largely absent from the game itself, grindy loot hunting, no PC release, for some bizarre reason. But this is all water under the bridge now. Destiny 2 is coming very soon (September or October, depending on your platform). Let’s see what in store for us this time.

The story

Whereas the first Destiny operated on a “the story is out there” model, with codex entries and other fluffy stuff located outside of the game. Destiny 2 rectifies that odd design decision by putting a full story campaign in the game, complete with cutscenes, dialogues and all that you’d want from an epic campaign.
So what is the story then?
The Traveler is currently unavailable. Captured by the Cabal forces it cannot provide the superpower-granting to its army of Guardians. The subsequent invasion on Earth and destruction of the Guardian Tower results in the Vanguard scattering across the Solar system. If the three paragons of each of the classes decided to pick their battle elsewhere, what can you do?
Why, bring the gang back together and push back against the Cabal, of course. Over the course of the story you’ll visit multiple new planets where you’ll be tracking down the Vanguard.

New approach to loadouts

Destiny 2 changes the way loadouts work, relative to what they were like in the previous game. Now they are arranged according to the kind of damage your guns are dealing.
The three slots you can fill now are Kinetic, Energy, Power. Kinetic weapons are your standard fare, dealing a pretty straightforward damage, without many fanciful solution. Flights of fancy is where energy weapons come in. They are elementally charged guns dealing one of Destiny 2’s damage types: solar (fire stand-in), arc (lighting), or void (gravity, dark energy). These two slot can effectively share weapon classes between them. A rifle without a Solar/Arc/Void damage falls into a Kinetic category, but another may be considered an Energy weapon.
The last category, Power weapons are your heavy damage dealers: sniper rifles and LMGs and other such fun.
Compared to a little more rigid loadout slots in the first game the new system seems to allow more flexibility and the players will surely revel in figuring how to exploit it as much as possible.

New subclasses

The subclasses in the first Destiny were a lot of fun, so, thankfully, Destiny 2 didn’t decide to ditch them, and instead decided to add some new ones. The one revealed so far (surely not the only additions to the game) are pretty fun, at least on (figurative) paper.

Examples

Titans can now become Sentinels, a Void-based subclass equipped with a powerful shield. Effectively a Captain America implanted into the Destiny setting. Hunters can become Arcstriders, whose super gives them a lightning-based staff to whack enemies with. Warlocks get a Solar-based subclass called Dawnblade, which can rain flaming swords down on enemies. And it’s awesome.

More fun with friends

Destiny 2 found a way to help everyone experience the high-end content like raids to everyone, even those who typically don’t bother with joining clans. The Guided Games system will allow players not affiliated with any clan to team up with groups looking for an extra player outside of their clan. It will be presumably better than matchmaking as we know it, because it won’t plop you into a group of complete randos, instead letting you play with a supposedly coordinated team. Which is nice, if you care about any measure of success.

Explore and discover

In D2 we will get to visit some new planets in our search for the Vanguard. For Zavala we will look on thematically appropriate Saturn’s moon Titan. The robotic Hunter Cayde-6 can be found on Nessus, fighting his own fight against the Vex. Finally the Warlock Ikora found refuge on Io, where she allegedly aims to discover more information on the Traveler.
In addition to story locations, the planets will have lost sectors: places long forgotten which need rediscovery and possibly some pest extermination.

Worth waiting for?

In all the ways revealed to us so far Destiny 2 seems to be shaping up as a great online shooter. With a high-stakes campaign to direct the player, flashy and punchy weapons, and much fun to be had with subclasses and loadouts, it may not only make up for its predecessors shortcomings, but also be very entertaining in its own right.
On consoles Destiny 2 launch comes on September 6. However PC players will have to wait until October 24. One way or another, there is still enough time to decide whether you’ll buy the game or not.