Destiny 2

Destiny

Developed by Bungie and published by Activision, Destiny is a sci-fi first-person shooter game with MMORPG elements that was released in September 2014 for Playstation 3, Xbox 360, Playstation 4, and Xbox One consoles. The setting of Destiny is many thousands of years in the future where humanity has traveled far and wide in the solar system, and is on the brink of extinction. The player plays as a Guardian in a dystopian post-apocalyptic future where Earth (as humanity once knew) has fallen to The Darkness, which is made up of various alien races. The Guardian’s mission is to stop humanity from being completely destroyed.

Species

When creating their Guardian, players can choose to be one of the three species:

(From left to right)

Awoken – A race of humanoids with pale blue or gray-ish skin

Human – A native of Earth

Exo – Humanoid machines

The species are only cosmetic, which means they only determine the Guardian’s appearance and does not affect the gameplay at all.

Classes

Players can choose to be one of three classes. Each class have unique appearances and abilities, which affect the game play experience. All the classes are well-balanced, meaning that there is no one particular class that is better than the other. I believe the objective of the different classes is to cater to the different playstyles of individual players.

Hunter – An agility type character, like a bounty hunter.

Titan –  This is the “traditional” FPS type of hero, which focuses on armor and DPS (my favorite!). In my opinion, the Titan in Destiny plays a lot like Master Chief from Halo, which was also another game by Bungie.

Warlock – A character that specializes in combining the use of “magic” powers and modern weapons. Warlocks use ranged melee attacks and cast elemental spells.

Each class also has an array of subclasses where players can build on as they level up.

Just like any other MMO type game, players gain experience (EXP) and obtain improved gear, abilities, and weapons as they level up in the game. Apart from the main campaign, Destiny also features other MMO elements, such as PvP (Player vs. Player a.k.a. Crucible), PvE (Player vs. Environment), Quests (Story Missions), Strikes (Dungeons) and Raids.

Despite the rich graphics and excellent gameplay, the storyline for Destiny was, in my opinion, lackluster as it was often confusing and hard to follow. One of my favorites was the infamous line by The Stranger at Ishtar Academy – “I don’t even have time to explain why I don’t have time to explain.” It made me confused to the point where I would be like, “Huh? What did this NPC just tell me?”, and laugh at the same time. It was one of those situations where I could not decide if I was laughing because it’s funny or that the dialogue is just so bad (that it’s funny!).

In all that time she took to tell me that time wasn’t in our favor and that she didn’t have time to explain, I thought she could’ve instead just given me a TL;DR version of whatever it was that she wanted to tell me… Just saying! LOL…

Destiny 2

Destiny 2 will be launching today at 9pm PST for the Playstation 4 and Xbox One. The game will also be available for Windows PC on October 24 on the Blizzard Battle.net client.

The story for Destiny 2 starts where The Tower (the homebase for the Guardians from Destiny) has been destroyed and taken over by the Cabal, led by Dominus Ghaul. I was fortunate enough to be a part of the open beta on the PC and play through the first campaign. Destiny 2 promises an improvement in the storyline, clearing up the confusion and filling up the plot holes in the Destiny lore and just making it worth paying attention to as a whole.

Based on the beta, Destiny 2 looks promising. I am especially excited for the PC version because, well, mouse and keyboard! In the meantime, here’s the official launch trailer for Destiny 2.

Are you ready, Guardian?
Tell us your thoughts in the comments below!

Pick up your copy of Destiny 2!