Back in July, I did my impressions on the Destiny 2 beta. Fast forward 3 months later, and Guardians are back in Bungie’s sci-fi adventure, creating new memories and kicking more space arse. I took some time off to fully dive deep into the sequel, and although this is going to be a short entry, I’ll hopefully give you enough insight as to what’s different this time around.

Story

We were promised a better story, and surprisingly, we got it. The main campaign for Destiny 2 follows the Guardians struggle against Red Legion Cabal baddie Dominus Ghaul. As you may have seen/known, Ghaul wrecks everybody and destroys the Tower. His main objective is obtain the Light, which as you may or may not know gives Guardians’ their abilities.

The main campaign is short, like 15 or so missions I think, but what we received is something world’s better than what Destiny gave us. The characters are better too, with Cayde-6 stealing the show like he did in the Taken King add-on.

The beginning of the game really surprised me at how helpless Bungie made you feel without your powers. The narrative does progress pretty quickly as you gain your powers back sooner than you think. My main complaint is that Ghaul’s overall presence in the story is equivalent to that of Optimus Prime’s in Transformers: The Last Knight (which was pretty short). Nonetheless, this was world’s better than it’s predecessor’s, but certainly nor sensational like The Witcher 3. (As a bonus, expect to dive deeper into your classes’ history).

Better than the first one? Check.

Gameplay

The most important part of the game. Spoiler alert; it’s better than the first one.

Bungie has done some tinkering to the core gameplay of Destiny, and adding in some new things with Destiny 2. I won’t too deep into this category since my beta impressions covered a lot of it.

Classes have been modified and made a lot better. Each subclass has two distinct skill tress that change gameplay up for your classes, and if you’re like me, you find it hard to choose from because they offer pretty dank (excuse this word, also synonymous with awesome) benefits. Each class feels good, and maybe I haven’t seen it yet, but nothing feels overpowered compared to the constant nerf Bungie had to do to Bladedancer or Sunbreaker. You earn upgrade points which unlock said skills in the trees, by leveling up or completing missions.

One thing you will notice is that there is no leveling up system for guns, subclasses, or pretty much anything from Destiny. You upgrade your subclasses with upgrades points and you level up your character to 20. That’s it, and it’s amazing. Less of a grind this time around.

One of my main complaints from the beta was super recharge times, and they’re significantly better this time around. Thank you Bungie!

Gameplay better than the first? Trust me; it is.

The Grind

A huge detractor from the original Destiny was that awful grinding system, where you had to grind your life away for any/everything. Well this time, it’s significantly better, minus not getting a Sparrow until you beat the campaign or get it from a loot drop.

As I mentioned earlier, there is no leveling up tier minus the grind to 20. However, this is made significantly easier by the amount of content you can participate in. Public events run every five minutes in different areas of each world (mind you the maps are fridges huge). You are given plenty of little side quests you can participate in, giving you gear upgrades and upgrade points. I participated in as much content as I could, and I hit level 20 in a day and a half. I guess you could it’s almost too easy, but if you compare it to the previous grind, I like this one way better.

Okay so you hit level 20, you beat the story, and you’re ready to grind for exotics but you don’t know how to get them. Each world offers a quest line that, upon completion, lead you to an exotic quest line. It’s much better improvement rather than the random exotic quest lines you’d get every once in awhile in Destiny.

You can gain reputation with different vendors in Destiny 2. However this is easy, as you can turn in materials you find in the world or tokens you gain from completing quests. Upon completing one level of reputation, the vendor will give you a legendary engram in the range of your light level.

The grind? Less grindy than the original.

Final Impressions

3 years ago Bungie launched Destiny to some mixed reception. The concept was cool, the gameplay was solid, but the execution was very poor. This time around, it definitely went a lot smoother.

It’s almost comical how much of an improvement Destiny 2 is over it’s predecessor. I’m not saying that to be an a-hole; I’m saying it because the original really had the potential to be something more special than it was to some players. Destiny 2 sees improvement all over the board. If you didn’t like the first one, I’d definitely say go over to a friend’s house and try it out before you dive in again. If you did like the original, than you’ll feel much more rewarded in this game.

I did not discuss PvP because the sift in focus from 6v6 to 4v4 is weird since I don’t play Destiny for a serious PvP experience. Another thing to note is that shaders have limited usage and must be applied to each armor piece individually. I don’t know why they did that, and while I don’t support that, you get a ton of shaders which allows for some interesting color combos.

Guardians, I hope to see you out in the field! Let me know how you feel about Destiny 2 in the comments below or wherever you may encounter me.