Developer: Bungie
Publisher: Activision
Platform: PS4
Tested on: PS4, XBox One, PC (okt 24)
Destiny 2 – Review
Destiny 2 explores a whole new chapter of the story of the Guardians first introduced in the original Destiny game; mysterious and powerful warriors empowered by an alien entity, now confronted with a whole new dangerous adversary. This first-person shooter MMO action-RPG has a lot to offer for everyone loving story content, PvE or PvP. Destiny 2 is developed by Bungie and published by Activision.
Story
The story of Destiny 2 expands on the story of the first Destiny, without explaining anything about it. To understand the story it’s handy to have played Destiny, or to check out some of the lore behind it. For the un-informed: In Destiny you play as a so-called guardian, who has special powers granted to them, like the power to resurrect and several magic-like abilities. These powers stem from an enormous mysterious sphere named ‘The Traveler’, which had suddenly appeared in the solar system, quite some time in the past. The traveler shared its vast knowledge with humanity, and has greatly advanced human technology to make space travel possible, among many other things. The Traveler also terraforms planets, and has done so on many planets and moons of the solar system. After a golden age of prosperity for humanity, the traveler gets attacked by an ancient enemy known as the darkness. The war with the darkness destroyed humanity’s greatly expanded empire, and crippled the Traveler, reducing it to a dormant husk hovering in earth’s atmosphere, but its presence is still granting the special powers to the guardians, and casting a protective field over the City, the last great bastion of humanity.
The power of the Traveler is called ‘the light’, which is what makes your guardian a guardian. And this is exactly what’s at stake in Destiny 2. After a devastating attack by ‘the Red Legion’ of the Cabal empire which destroys The Tower, the main hub of the first Destiny game, the leader of the Legion, Ghaul, reveals they have attacked earth to get hold of the powers of the Traveler. They encapsulate the Traveler, and they steal the powers of the light from all guardians, including your own character. Most of the last city is destroyed, and the survivors set up a new base of operations on an old farm. First, your character needs to regain the powers of the light in order to fully function as a guardian again, and be able to protect humanity. To do this, you’ll first travel to the European Dead Zone, which contains a shard of the Traveler, and still contains a remnant of the light. After gaining your powers back, you’ll be sent on several missions, all in order to get humanity back on its feet, and defend humanity from hordes of different aliens who are trying to trample humanity.
The story is a simple story of good versus evil. It’s being told in campaign mode, through many voice communications while you explore, and a huge amount of cut scenes. It all feels very epic, with the fate of humanity hanging in the balance. The story isn’t groundbreakingly unique or strong, but it will certainly entertain you for at least 10+ hours, and it certainly fits the shoot ‘em up gameplay very well.
Graphics
Destiny 2 looks absolutely beautiful. The world is full of details and interesting landscapes. The environments are in constant movement; weather, wind, water, everything looks amazing! Every planet has its own unique looks, and they look seriously impressive. As you play the game, you’ll often find yourself admiring the view, or just being amazed by the beautifully designed buildings or structures around you. For instance: the European Dead Zone on Earth looks beautifully overgrown, like mysterious old ruins combined with modern technological elements. Titan has no land, but many crooked and bent platforms in an unforgiving sea with giant waves. There are many imposing factors in the level designs, like huge drills you need to dodge, or an enormous airborne rail-gun you’ll infiltrate. There are a lot of cool and colorful visual effects like explosions, fire, electricity, etc, and a lot of moving objects like ribbons flowing in the wind, or waves crashing beneath you. The whole game looks impressive.
The character and enemy animations are smooth and look very cool. Your character feels very acrobatic and agile, and each type of enemy moves uniquely different: some are stomping around quite intimidatingly, and some scurry toward you like insects. Since you’ll be battling hordes and hordes of different enemies, this variance is very nice, and it’s always fun and refreshing to see new types of enemies or a new mini-boss.
The UI is very intuitive and helpful, with clear options, inventory, travel locations, and a map displaying all quests and world events. Loading times when you are switching between areas can be rather slow, so expect to watch the loading screens for some time during your play session.
Sound
The sound design of this Destiny 2 is fantastic: intense battle music is being alternated with beautiful calm orchestral music. The voice acting is great! Each character has a well-developed personality, which is conveyed very well through their voices. Despite the rather grim story and serious character development, there’s a nice amount of humor and jokes lightening up the conversations. There’s actually a lot of conversation going on during the story missions, making it completely clear what’s going on around you, what you need to do, and why you need to do it. Having a lot of chatter while you roam around shooting masses of enemies is pretty great, without it the game would feel much more like a random grind.
Gameplay
Destiny 2 is a first person shooter with RPG elements. The game has a story campaign, which will offer you about twelve hours of gameplay. Next to that you’ll be able to participate in PvP, instanced co-op missions with a boss battle at the end, and a raid.
Destiny is a great first person shooter, with fast weapons switches, many unique weapon types you need to use strategically, a super strong melee attack, and very cool looking super moves. All weapons behave differently, and you’ll soon notice you’ll develop a preference for certain weapons which fit your play style. It’s not just mindless shooting: you’ll do a lot of jumping around and platforming, and you’ll need to make use of the cover around you.
Just like the first Destiny, this game is all about loot! Get better loot te be able to tackle more challenging missions, and earn even better loot subsequently. You’ll constantly upgrade your gear just like in any RPG, plus there are three different weapon-types you carry: Kinetic weapons (rifles, SMGs, etc), energy weapons (elemental properties) and power weapons (grenade launches, sniper rifles, shotguns, swords). There are three classes to choose from: titans, hunters and warlocks, with different unique sub-classes. Titans are the tank-class, with the ability to shield yourself and your allies. Hunters are built for speed and mobility, and warlocks are powerful wielders of magic. When creating your character, you’ll get a number of options to make the face of your character look different and unique.
There’s a lot of PvE content to enjoy in Destiny 2. Next to the story-line campaign quests, there are also ample side quests, patrol missions, public events, challenges, and much more. As you progress it’s possible to unlock more PvE content, which offers better gear to progress further. After the campaign you’ll be able to get better gear from several missions and events found on the world maps, and from strikes, which are dungeons: 3 man cooperative missions with a spectacular end-battle against a boss. Eventually you’ll be able to conquer the game’s first raid: the Leviathan. Next to the ample PvE content you’ll also be able to join the 4 vs 4 PvP teams in The Crucible, on several maps with different objectives, which are selected randomly when you queue up.
Conclusion
Destiny 2 is a fantastic game, probably one of the best shooters out there: the gun-play is still as excellent as we are used from the first Destiny game, and from Bungie in general. The graphics are super impressive and detailed, with well animated characters and cool visual effects. The music is absolutely great! During gameplay you can expect to hear lots of narration, which is performed very well. The story is a bit confusing for new Destiny players, but after watching a lore video on YouTube, things will become clear. You’ll need some background on the lore of Destiny to understand what’s happening at the start of the game and to learn about the characters, and some information about the enemies you’ll fight would be nice too. After that, the story of the campaign and the motivation of your character is completely understandable, and the story feels very epic while you are fighting your way through the campaign.
Destiny 2 - Review,
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