Bungie's Destiny 2 appears to have found a sizable audience right out of the gates, pulling in 1.2 million concurrent players in the days after its September 6th launch. And that's before its PC release, which is scheduled for October 24th.
Does the game correct the flaws of the original? Does it mar the magic that made the original so addictive? Gamasutra staffers who've played the game decided to chew over its merits amongst themselves.
Alex Wawro (@awawro), news editor: Hullo! I don't know if y'all heard, but Bungie released a new video game earlier this month. It's not Myth III, sure, but it seems like people are taking a shine to it anyhow.
Leaving aside the obvious misstep made in not branding it Des2ny: Traveler's Blues, I wanted to check in and get your thoughts on Destiny 2. I know we've all been playing it; after our stream on launch week I wound up playing quite a bit, and now suddenly I'm max level.
The funny thing is, I wasn't really into the first Destiny and I'm not really excited about this one, either -- yet I find myself drawn to keep playing, in large part because a lot of my friends are playing too. Am I crazy? Is there something really remarkable about this game's design that I'm just oblivious to?
The bits that stick out to me most, at this point, seem like little things: the environmental art and audio is striking. The fact that shaders have been made consumable is frustrating. My character looks amazing, and TBH all I really want to do is walk around the shared social spaces and show off her rad haircut. What doesn't stick out at all, now that I look back, is anything about the game's narrative or its characters.
Do you feel differently? What sticks out to you, now that you've spent some time with the latest iteration of Bungie's sci-fi shooter second coming? How d'you suppose it will fare in the market, now that it's expanded to PC alongside PS4 and Xbox One?
What is the best emote?
Bryant Francis (@RBryant2012), contributing editor: I’m level 20, and I’ll share some thoughts from my journey to save The Traveler and/or become a fancy-pants robro.
"Destiny’s collaborative play has a unique mix going for it, where single-player grinding and cooperative grinding can funnel toward the same rewards."
I think I remain continually interested in Destiny as a game that “feels like home,” per our discussion with Slime Rancher dev Nick Popovich a few weeks back. Destiny’s collaborative play has a unique mix going for it, where single-player grinding and cooperative grinding can funnel toward the same rewards. Because of this, it’s both pleasant to pop into Destiny 2, and use it as a space to go on adventures with your friends while shooting very sweet guns and listening to great voice actors tell you about strange proper nouns.
Now the thing is, that’s kind of what World of Warcraft did for me back in the day, except in a far more polished fashion (and with less standing around LFG). I think I’ve been a bit harsher on Destiny than I ever was on World of Warcraft, and I think that has to do with Destiny’s continual narrative push towards importance, while WoW did a good job kind of treating new dungeons/raids as a theme park and not the next secret in the tale of…something or other.
And that’s not just in the marketing, that’s in the level/mission structure. I actually applaud Destiny 2’s narrative designers for coming up with some clever reasons to “shoot here, hold this point, gather this thing,” and letting their voice actors take the reigns, but I think Destiny would be better served by a general vibe that supported its “home” sensibility. You’re a space superhero, hanging out, plundering dungeons, getting sweet sweet loot. I think that’s what Destiny’s players like about the game!
But to be fair to the fine folks at Bungie, I think this is a really hard thread to needle. Players have to care, and the quickest way to get them to care is to put megalomaniacal villains, superweapons, and cities to rescue on the board. I just kind of wish the quests sometimes were “check out this sweet place, and get yourself a sweet gun!” I’d argue there’s room to just meet characters in a fashion similar to 80 Days in a game like that.
Alex, to your question about the game’s success, I’m worried for Destiny 2 in the same way I’m worried for every game in 2017, which is, if it isn’t PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, I hope it will do enough sales to keep its developers in business.
(I do think PC will bring a huge explosion of new players to the game, I just also am concerned it will create a lot of hacking headaches for Bungie…)
Alissa McAloon (@gliitchy), contributor: I really meant to jot my thoughts on Destiny 2 down sooner, but I keep getting distracted by the game itself. I put close to 500 hours into the original Destiny and played consistently for the first two years of that game’s lifespan, and I can already feel myself slipping back into those old routines with Destiny 2.
"In the first game, the between-mission busywork was a necessary but sometimes dull way to grind for gear. In Destiny 2, that process seems much more interesting."
I haven’t been able to track how much time I’ve put into Des2ny yet, but I’m creeping up on 270 power and already in the process of roping together some friends to attempt the recently unlocked raid this weekend. Really, I thought I was moving through the game at a leisurely pace until recently and I think part of that has to do with how Bungie has brought back and improved on the small, reoccurring events and activities that dot Destiny’s open planetscapes.
Adventures in particular have done a lot to add some much needed character to Destiny 2 and its planets. The first game was very touch-and-go with its narrative, and seemed to introduce new enemies and allies without ever really fleshing either out. Now, adventures act as side-quests that
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