Is Destiny 2 worth it? I’ve spent the last three days locked away from the rest of the world, grinding away in Destiny 2 . I’ve slain hundreds of Cabal, Fallen and Vex on my quest to reach the quintessential rank of power - level 20. On my way there, I’ve learned a lot about this great big universe Bungie’s created and even a little bit about myself. There will be spoilers for Destiny 2 here, so if you want to be surprised by the main story, you should turn away.
I expected to hate Destiny 2 after playing both of the open betas. After slogging through that tutorial and getting my ass handed to me in PVP, I expected that there wouldn’t be much for me to enjoy in the full game. My aim is terrible in FPS games, especially on console, where I constantly lose Overwatch matches for my team because I can’t even land a single Junkrat grenade. I decided to play as a Hunter, partly because it was the only class I had yet to dabble with, but also because it’s my favorite Hearthstone class. If I was going to play this game, I had to become the Guardian Rexxar
After finishing the tutorial for the third time, I headed off into the unknown of the European Dead Zone. Bungie did an amazing job creating an ambience for their game, the world felt real and inhabited. It’s hard making an MMO feel like an actual place, since the real world rarely has hordes of enemy mobs hanging around every street corner. City Of Heroes managed to get away with it by being based in a comic book, while Destiny 2 pulls it off by placing players in specific, war-torn locations. It makes sense that the EDZ is full of scavenger bug-people, since there’s plenty of loot to pilfer.
As I moved ahead with the story, something happened that I never expected: I became interested in the story. Ghaul might be one of the coolest looking, most interesting villains I’ve faced in an MMO. His rocket pack and face mask should have made him feel like a children’s toy, but instead I got this feeling that he was just a misused soul with daddy issues. He controls the Cabal, the strongest fleet in the galaxy, who never get defeated and he has the ego to match. When ships start to blow up and his plan starts to go awry, he loses it and tries to steal all of the Traveller’s essence for his own.
The only time I was disappointed throughout my entire playthrough was that last boss fight. After slugging through countless hordes of Gladiators and Legionaries, blowing up a ship with missile launchers from the inside-out and jumping through a teleportation tube, I was ready for an impossibly hard boss fight. Instead, I watched the badass Ghaul jump into the air, sling easily dodged energy blasts and scream about infinite power. If you died and respawned, he still had the same amount of health, giving the fight no real stakes. On top of that, the pools of light energy around the map charged my Gunslinger ability over and over, which took him down in a couple of shots. For that much build-up, that fight sure was a disappointment.
Even though I reached the level cap, my time with Destiny 2 is far from over. I still have Bounties to collect, global missions to finish and loot to plunder. I thought I’d hate Bungie’s non- Halo franchise game, but it seems to be filling my video game niche perfectly. The fast-paced combat, interactive story and nearly unlimited loot to collect will end up consuming my entire life. It might not be perfect, but it’s perfect for me.
How are you liking Destiny 2? Tell us in the comments.
