Review: Destiny 2

Your light is gone, your city is destroyed and your character, a Guardian, has to try to find themselves again and fight back against the insidious Cabal, a Martian race of giant reptilian creatures. Needless to say, things are not great for our hero at the start of “Destiny 2.”

A couple hours into the story content though, I realized I was having fun. Fun is something that, depending on who you ask, was sorely lacking from the grindcentric first entry in the series. Gone are the repetitive patrols and paper-thin story content, replaced purposefully with new adventures (Destiny’s version of typical MMO’s sidequests) and an expansive series of narrative events.

The story this time around is less of a mysterious series of seemingly unrelated characters and locations, and more of a “Star Wars” inspired space opera, hitting the melodramatic highs and lows that create an engaging experience. It also frequently pokes fun at things from the first game, from terrible lines (“I don’t have time to explain everything, I don’t have time to explain”) to larger locations. Every character, even the returning ones, have new personality injected into them. New characters like Hawthorne and Failsafe come alive in their roles, as well, creating a cast that is both relatable and fun to encounter repeatedly (which helps!).

The gameplay is nothing but refined this time around, with each weapon feeling unique and intuitive. The game rewards you for trying out different weapon combinations, allowing each player to craft a style that works best for them, with almost infinite possibilities available thanks to the new weapon system.

Players can take these loadouts to the field with four new maps on new locations for the series, including the ocean-based Titan, the pastel-colored Io, and Nessus, the largest of the areas. Each one has a wide array of adventures, story modes and public group events to keep players engaged and involved during their time with the game.

Speaking of public events, “Destiny 2” does the impossible by smoothly blending the often times aggravating nature of online play (which, on PS4, hasn’t given me any problems yet) and a very solid story mode.

Logging in, finding a group and getting some loot has never been easier.

Overall, “Destiny 2” solidly enhances almost everything from the first game, providing a great option for gamers looking for a long-term timesink that they’ll be able to play for at least a few years — with two planned expansions on the way.

Britton Rozzelle is the executive editor for The Spectator. He can be reached at edinboro.spectator@gmail.com.

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