A Tenno’s Thoughts on Destiny 2
Going from new light to trials of osiris, this has been my experience with the game.
The Good
Solid gunplay, interesting enemies, excellent teamplay.
This game understandably feels like halo, and that’s a great thing. Good team interactions, cooperation, great boss fights and core gameplay loop of shoot-to-loot. Armor and customization is through the roof, and you really can play how you want.
Great art, music, landscapes, the game is beautiful and runs well. It rewards consistent fighting and it makes you really feel like you’re part of a war effort, and there’s always something to do. The voice acting, story, characters are all excellent, and it’s easy to get hooked into being a Guardian, it’s really a game that rewards player retention.
The Not-Good
Content removals, nerfs, paywalls and FOMO
From the moment you begin the new player experience, you’re hit with a brick wall of FOMO, references are made to crucially lore-important events, wars, and showdowns you’ve never heard of (or be able to play), players wearing armors, holding titles, and wielding weapons you’ll never be able to get, because they’ve been simply removed from the game. Sunsettings mean that items, cosmetics, etc. that you can’t buy from the MTX store (which does stock *some* past things, but nothing gameplay-impacting or particularly prestigious) are gone for good, and you had to be there. Better luck next time.
The game is advertised as free, but the main meat of the game (since the game’s story campaign has been removed) is found in DLC content… a lot of it, which adds up in price. Throw in paid season passes, time-limited events, and the fact that bungie regularly makes balance changes with the intent to shake up the meta, requiring you to re-grind the metagame gear, means that if you miss playing for long enough, you’ll be set back tremendously. Less so with the weekly bounties/vendor rotations, but if you can’t play for a week, and said vendors have a currently meta or crucially important item, well, better luck next time. This is to speak nothing of the RNG involved in drop farming, but that’s pretty well covered in some of the other reviews.
Summary/TL;DR
It’s good, if you’re willing to start permanently behind and not mind the business model.
To enjoy this game in full, you needed to have been playing at launch, or even D1 before it, but it’s still decently fun to get into and frag around in. If you really want to reach popular or endgame content or *truly* shine and join a high level clan (one of the only ways to do said high level content), be prepared for weekly grinds, RNG slogs, and the need to devote a significant portion of your life to keeping tabs on this game to stay relevant and obtain good rolls on things before the meta eventually shifts.
For some people? That’s what they’re looking for out of a game, but i can’t bring myself to recommend it, because i’m not that kind of gamer.