Sometimes I have the thought "I should try getting into Destiny 2 again" before I remember that it's literally impossible to experience the game's story beginning to end anymore, causing my interest to evaporate instantly
Comments
Log in with your Bluesky account to leave a comment
Not being able to play through the entire story campaign start to finish is a drag for new players, but imho you can still experience the core of the story with a quick YouTube summary vid covering Launch+forsaken+Shadowkeep, and then play beyond light, witch queen, lightfall and final shape
Relic Hunters Legend is essentially top-down Borderlands 2 with all the good stuff from Destiny, a Saturday morning aesthetic, and devs who are so based to the point that they have removed all the live service always online stuff, and it costs only 15 bucks
1000% agree. It’s completely incomprehensible with so much of its experience filed away indefinitely and a grind that feels like a second job. No, thanks.
The new player experience in Destiny is as bad as everyone says, but it doesn't deter me nearly as much as that feeling of knowing you've already missed the only chance to ever experience a game in full
It also has a bunch of events containing important story beats that never got properly integrated into the game after the events ended, so it's not even a real solution for this.
Like clockwork. As someone who’s also fallen off Destiny in favor for Warframe, I STILL cannot understand WF fan’s obsession with thinking it’s a 1:1 Destiny replacement when the reality is that they play NOT EVEN REMOTELY THE SAME. They just irritate and push people away in the process.
I want both games to get better! I love them both! (At least I did Destiny before Bungie management’s horrendous layoffs of brilliant artists) But just because *I* enjoy both games doesn’t mean that every other disgruntled Destiny fan is obligated to feel the same way.
"You want a game to be better? Have you tried one with an entirely different playstyle, aesthetic, and narrative drive, whose progression is built primarily around waiting on timers?"
Come to think of it, there's VERY little content for new players that could be considered a campaign. The Red War campaign was a great way to familiarise players with the universe and create attachment. Now it's "Okay, you're a zombie space wizard. Here's a series of tutorials. Buy the season pass."
They've "vaulted" (removed) a considerable amount of the game's content over the years, including the original story campaign and multiple expansion campaigns.
I saw a report a while ago that Destiny's playerbase is shockingly old for a shooter purely because the only people with any interest in it are the people who got into it seven years ago and have actually been following it this whole time.
Abject, unmitigated failure to maintain their game.
Yeah, it really sucks that Destiny has such great gameplay gated behind a wall of Bungie's decisions over the years. I want to be able to wholeheartedly recommend it to people, but I can't. I really hope they are able to reassemble it somehow, someday.
Destiny is a game I would love to get more of my friends into, but instead I actively warn them against trying it. It's such a shame because there's been a lot of really neat stuff over the years, and most of it is just gone forever.
If you really do want to get back into it then the best I could recommend is keep an eye out for the next big expansion. The story they've been telling was capped off with The Final Shape and they're gearing up to start something new.
It's even worse in that even if the campaigns were kept in place, most of the seasonal storylines that took place between them are also gone. You'd miss out on the BBEG lore reveal or when a cool character came back for a while.
It's like playing FFXIV if they cut patch quests between expansions.
It is interesting how we have two Live Service games concurrently that are the opposite ends of the spectrum:
FFXIV's "yeah the ARR content is kind of a slog and outdated in the narrative and gameplay design, but you gotta power through it"
vs
D2's "well the old content just doesn't exist anymore"
I love Warframe too, but no downsides is a stretch.
New player experience is confusing as all hek, and there are definitely still some monetisation traps that just exist to lure in new players who don't know what things are worth yet.
Mourning a timeline that never happened where u got a chance to experience it. Your league lore energy combined with D2 could probably kill a guy (positive).
It doesn’t help that, aside from dumping some cutscenes on their YouTube channel, Bungie doesn’t have much interest in filling in the story gaps. They put a timeline feature in-game 2 years ago to try and help but they just…stopped updating it.
Great narrative, great game, all free, rival by default of Destiny.
Only missing things are a few details from events, but they're basically footnotes.
Also you will love to breakdown the Warframe designs and their skins, believe me. I need a short on Lavos, Xaku, Nidus and Dante.
It sucks knowing that some of my favorite experiences and memories in destiny (spire of stars, menagerie, WRATH OF THE MACHINE!) are currently being kept from us to lure us back in through nostalgia to keep their continually sinking ship afloat.
In the Warframe subreddit every now and then Destiny 2 refugees ask if they are too late to get with the story, and we have to kindly reply: there is nothing you can miss in Warframe. Except the founder's package 11 years ago
This is my big problem with World of Warcraft too. So much of the old content and story has been removed from the game that it's basically impossible to experience the entire narrative.
And that's such an odd choice for a massive AAA developed game by a known & storied developer. Like, I think narrative like that could be interesting, but in a smaller indy space. The fact they settled on that in a market about making billions is baffling.
It's in such a weird spot. The gameplay is great and the raids and dungeons are experiences that are nearly unique in the genre, but the game is structured in a way to make it actively hard to engage with :/
Yeah! I remember trying to start during that Witch expansion and I'm met with a different intro and Cayde6 is gone and everyone is memorializing him like I should know what's happened from the beginning and 😩
I tried to play it earlier this year with some friends, but the fact I had to start all over again (light level reset) put me off doing it. I went from a badass oneshot killing machine to the equivalent of a toddler with a water pistol.
That’s the issue with FOMO, or live service games. They’re good at keeping you playing, but also good at keeping you from playing. I don’t have the time or energy to devote to a game every day. I want to play at my own pace.
I just wish there was more competition in the gaming market so destiny could finally get itself together. The poor management, the constant layoffs, the lack of focus, it's all eating bungie alive and ripping the fun out of destiny.
It's unfortunate because destiny has a pretty fun gameplay loop, with a great story presentation. Bungie doesn't realize how awful it was to get rid of its entire narrative and only leave in the newer stuff. It's like removing all of the MCU before endgame, then keeping everything after lol
I was so mad they kept pushing the game forward. I was trying to play Mars myself. Not a good way to host the servers is it? Really wish they had save states for each expansion, personally
I feel the same way. I played Destiny 2 a lot when it first released. I cleared the first raid with friends and did pretty much everything you could do then left for other games. Always wanted to return, but having most of the game missing is a deal breaker for me.
Destiny is the single greatest waste of potential I've every seen. It still breaks my fucking heart, and that game came out when I was in middle school.
And dont even think about the financial aspect🧍🏻♂️i dont get why they didnt just make multiple games? Instead of a long drawn out story costing $40 (?) bucks a pop for each “chapter”
Couldn't agree more.I jumped back into D2 after a long break and had no clue what was going on.There is no cohesive storyline, just really long intros that eventually lead to shooting something for the sake of it.Feel sorry for any new players to D2, this is not the Destiny that I lovingly remember.
Yeah the one thing stopping me from playing destiny is the fact that I can't play the previous DLCs I paid for and I can't play the story that I've missed, and all the content with seasons is confusing.
I downloaded it the other day and wanted to play the main storyline again and then immediately got bombarded with all the dlc quests. It's just not fun for a returning player
No cause I was a fan since the beginning. I stopped playing for a bit after Cayde died and could never get back into it. My dad plays it religiously and keeps trying to get me back into it, I physically can't. It's way too complicated.
Same, and that's exactly why I wish they would port Destiny 1 to PC. Through all the awful decisions Destiny 1 has just been sitting there but I can't gather enough friends to fire up the ol' PS3 and make it worth playing.
This happened to me as well. I dropped out at some point and when I tried to come back for (maybe) Shadowkeep, I didn't really grasp what I missed and there wasn't a great way to review what I was missing so I didn't get back in.
Its definitely one of the weirdest juxtapositions I’ve had as a recent player getting into FFXIV from Destiny 2. Being locked out of zones, classes, and some skills in FF felt weird, but the story experience was absolutely worth it. I do understand that ARR is a slog, but that is an experience I -
would not wanted to have skipped, much in the same way Destiny 2’s year 1 (Red War, Curse of Osiris, and Warmind) was an akward stepping stone to more fleshed out systems and content, losing those locations and activities guts me, and that reveals how even if there are things we wish we skipped -
(Fetch quest bloat in FFXIV and terrible patrol zones on Mercury in D2), Destiny 2 lost out on some really good activities such as the strikes from Warmind and Curse of Osiris, and I could not imagine some ARR experiences being skipped over. “You had to be there.” has to be one of the most indicati-
ve aspects of these live service games, and I really do wish there was a way those old Destiny 2 campaigns and even seasons could be reimplemented and refined for expedited gameplay.
I feel the exact same way. I moved from Destiny to FFXIV, and even though it initially felt weird being locked out of areas I am glad I wasn't forced into story I had no context for. I still play D2 with friends, but it's hard to want to bring someone new into the game for all the reasons above.
I'm a FF14 player but I've never played Destiny, what do y'all mean by locked out of areas? Like you can't go to zones that the story hasn't gone to yet?
That's definitely not how those campaigns were intended to be experienced when they were originally made, and watching cutscene compilations is rarely a satisfactory substitute for actually experiencing a piece of interactive media firsthand.
I’m the same. I really want to experience the base game campaign and some of the expansions again but it’s all gone. Also dipping in after a long break is so overwhelmingly confusing with all the changes they constantly make. It takes weeks just to get to grips with the systems again.
This was a big struggle for me when I got back into it around The Final Shape (assisted by the likes of My Name is Byf), but the new player experience and retention is generally still not great. I’ve parked it again after Episode Echoes until Frontiers drops.
The Final Shape is really good, but I’ve been struggling with the episodes. The story they are telling is okay, but it’s the seasonal model. I’d rather we get DLC and small stuff like april updates
I’ve always been able to play without fixating on the story, because the gameplay is still very satisfying. But you are right. I don’t know how anyone could jump into it new, today; it would be like handing someone a scalpel and a 6,000 page medical history, and saying “the surgery is at 5pm today”
Sometimes I think about playing Destiny 2 again, and then think about the fact that the content that I paid $90 for at launch - and never finished after my daughter was born - is gone forever.
I'm very grateful I've actually kept up with it over the years for exactly this reason. It's very difficult to get into as a new player or even a lapsed one.
A very fun game, for me personally, but I don't really recommend it to anyone who isn't already invested.
It's tough! I think the only way is to just buy the latest expansion and experience the new campaign (which is amazing). After you finish there's a lot to do and the og campaign kind of pales in comparison tbh. But yeah agree the new player exp is rough. Still think it's worth it tho!
The new player experience was so bad at a point that I un-installed before it ended. Then I tried it again years later, and it went through the opening of Destiny 1 for some reason. And that one went better but just spit me out on a planet where an npc was giving out rep quests, and I was like, huh?
And it was very cathartic to see the devs reveal they wanted to do a really good new player experience, but management wouldn't give them the go-ahead because it would cost too much dev time.
They do have the catch-up/summary missions for earlier story. But the final shape was an amazing conclusion. I'm holding on to see where these "episodes" take us.
They kind of fixed that this episode/season by making all of this chapter’s story content available at the start but the execution was mind boggling. 45 minutes of talking to people and running a mission or two for the full story chunk.
Destiny 2 forever will be the mark of a missed opportunity, even when I enjoyed it at its highs for me it always felt like there could have been better
If I were you, I wouldn't bother. I played the game for 10 years, and it's as bad a new player experience as people say. You get bombarded with pop ups and random quest markers with 0 context.
Bungie doesn't respect their players time or their money, over promising and under delivering consistently
Imagine if FFXIV just straight up removed ARR from the game and then also removed Heavensward and Stormblood and Shadowbringers and you know what fuck it Endwalker too.
I used to play constantly, hours a day. Then they started charging for everything and vaulting content I had already paid for. I haven't played destiny 2 in a few years. I still go back and play destiny 1 from time to time though.
Sadly im with you on that. The world is amazing and the gameplay is great with a Halo feel to it. However i cant recommend this game to new players because they will be overwhelmed by playing catchup on everything and being behind. I wouldnt be on the game if i wasnt up to date every seasons.
It's doubly frustrating because Destiny has some of the best writers doing the most amazing story work in the AAA space, only to have it thrown in the FOMO bin every few months. Thankfully youtubers like 'A villainous toaster' have been archiving what Bungie won't https://www.youtube.com/@Gunax332/search?query=destiny%202
Gonna make this less frustrating for you: the person who wrote most of the good stuff in Destiny, Seth Dickinson, was hired only as a freelancer, and paid so bad he lived "in a roach infested apartment" until he got a job on Subnautica and could afford to move out
It honestly feels like the world and story became bottom of the list in terms of priority. Became way too much of a grind-fest RPG, which is fine, but it alienated a large chunk of the player base quickly and permanently.
I feel the same way. And when I have tried to jump in, I am so overwhelmed by everything that I have no idea what to do first. ADHD for the win, right?
oh man i remember trying to play it some 3 years ago with a friend and it was just. so much. it was a fun experience but i was so overwhelmed. i dont think i could ever get into it now c,:
This happens to me once every few months, I miss the OG raid days of Destiny 1, try to get back into it, and turn it off because I have no clue what's happening.
This is why I stoped playing Destiny. Now I just watch the cutscenes online. RNG is garbage and they are just recycling content with new colors on old skins.
I just got I to it this year but I already played D1 and when it first went f2p. It's till so jarring missing gaps in the story but the guns feels good so who cares. Even the final dlc wouldn't hit at all if I never played the 1st game.
I remember pre-ordering destiny 2 my and friends and I had a blast while it lasted but I regretted getting it after hearing I got lucky enough to experience the story maybe its not so bad
A significant portion of the content released across Destiny 2's lifespan has been outright removed from the game (including the original story campaign and at least one expansion campaign)
I'd guess the culprit was the exponential scope creep of updating old content to work with new systems. I'm sure it seemed like the best solution at the time, but yeah: kinda poisonous to the experience long term.
What I do is pester my husband with questions because he's been playing forever and I get far too overwhelmed by the gameplay. Like coming in 5mins before the end of a movie and asking to be caught up
I go on an almost yearly destiny binge. When I hop on, I expect to have a rough idea of what's going on. Every time, I am very wrong, and extremely confused. At least the gunplay is satisfying.
This is why I do appreciate XIV's approach to "temporary community events." Because it is still sad to find out that Mor Dhona had a whole thing where the community built it up over time and you can't experience that, but that's a far cry from Heavensward just no longer being playable at all.
Stopped playing for a while and am now too intimidated to hop back in. Think I'm just going to watch some lore videos on YouTube to figure out what's going on in the story.
Yeah Destiny is structured in such a way that you can't get off the ride and just hop back on easily. Final shape is worth experiencing I think, and the co-op experience in raiding is worth playing even without the context.
Congratulations, that stumbling block is what killed my interest in D2 as well. On the bright side, my frustration with that inspired me to try out Myth: The Fallen Lords, from the ancient days when Bungie had integrity. It's a bitch and a half to get working on a modern system, but so worth it.
I tried to get into it because some friends were in to it and they basically never played again the next day. I quit 2 days after that. Story too confusing.
As someone who got into Destiny mainly for the gameplay I don’t really mind not being able to experience the Story.
Like my biggest gripe for D2 is locking most subclasses behind campaigns and it’s just a slog for me to get. Nowadays If I wanted to see a game’s story I’d just watch a youtube video.
also your vault is full because you spent literally years collecting every variant of every weapon that could possibly be useful and then the weapons got sunset but you can’t get rid of them because they might still be un-sunset so there’s no space to collect weapons in this game about weapon collec
I really think that once a looter shooter comes out with gunplay that’s somewhat close to feeling as good as Destiny people will flock immediately. All the “Destiny killers” have had a lot of other issues but on top of that their gameplay often feels stiff and lacks weight. Idk maybe one day.
3 times I’ve tried to come back after years away and every time I’m instantly put into a mission I’m under levelled for and forced to watch cutscenes I have no context for.
Then I have a miserable experience being destroyed for 45mins until I slowly get through it. Then I just walk away mad.
You can leave missions you get put into and go to the “base” hub to get a chest of gear which brings you up to level, but it’s unfortunately not really known to people who don’t play the game regularly.
As an OG Destiny player, my first real sign of trouble for the sequel was the gutting of Gambit, my favorite game mode, I would come back periodically but finally called it quits a couple years ago with the move to "free" but locking all new content behind overpriced "season" paywalls.
I've been playing Destiny 1 with a friend as I never did the original Destiny but have an unholy amount of hours in Destiny 2 and we were talking about this last night. I miss the red war and what I would give to be able to go and kill Panoptys and Xol again because.. I paid for it.
I still play Destiny 2, but none of my friends play, and I don't blame them. I feel it's VERY confusing for new players and players that fell behind a couple of seasons. I'm also not going to force anyone to buy expansions just so they can play with me. It's not worth it at all. I'm in too deep 😭
Beyond Light was a nice send off for the game for me and I'll remember my time fondly, but corporate greed has defiled that game. Pete Parsons should be fired and ran out of the industry for how he's ran things.
As someone who has played all of the story throughout the years, i promise you you’re missing nothing. They tried to do the dark souls thing of “most of the story is in lore entries” but it kind of fell flat
I find myself going back just to realize why I left. I've shot all the enemies so many times that it's just boring to me at this point. I've reearned the same exotics over just to have them nerfed into uselessness. Collected currencies just to one day toss them away. Tired.
Exactly why I stopped. My partner and I had a lot of fun with the free content in the tutorial area and then when we realized that everything after was paid DLC or repetition missions, it was immediately off putting and we were no longer interested in playing.
I love the aesthetics and story of Destiny and sometimes I wish I could just hop in and play through the story with some friends, but Destiny doesn’t want you to do that.
Such a shame. I played D2 a lot when it first came out, then forgot about it for years. I just got back into it from a fresh account on my PS5 and yeah, the new player experience isn't great at all. It's such a fun game but so sad to see it fall.
I just don't know what I'm doing lol. I don't know what activities to do, which weapons are best, and the artifacts system with the champions pisses me off lol.
They really need a fresh start with a less insane monetization model. I played Destiny like a religion, and mostly loved it the whole time. Destiny 2 felt like being in an abusive relationship from the jump, and eventually I realized the good times weren't gonna make up for all the bad.
I just started it for my first time last night. I never play shoot em up games. I’m more bdg, Zelda, Diablo. It’s a lot but I’m going to give it a valiant effort. Not loving it, but not hating it. I want a new BDG3 please!!!! lol
I tried getting my bf into it, only playing destiny 1 - all we had was Destiny 2... And it's so damn confusing how the first thing it made us play was a mission advertising the newest DLC. No linear progression.
Its fun asl if you can get multiple friends into it during a period where the dlcs are dirt cheap or straight free. I got a whole group on during a free dlc event and it was a blast. Just not something to get into if you care about story sorry but the story stinks 😭
As someone who counts Destiny 2 as my comfort game and have played it more than anything and truly do love it. Dungeons/Raids are the best content in gaming. That being said, it's a very hard game to recommend to newbies unless you have vets willing to truly hold your hand.
This is why the only Destiny 2 content I engage with now are videos made by Destiny Lore creators on YouTube. Destiny’s greatest tragedy is that it’s world, lore, and story are quite deep and compelling… but it’s all stuffed into a mediocre video game.
Well, I still love it. It's the one game I always come back to, and I have hope for its future. As for the story, I offer to you, courtesy of the Destiny community's favorite lore daddy, https://youtu.be/zzBmOeYmN_M?si=vZmO7371c97WARn-
I have repeatedly had the same experience, which sucks, because sometimes you just want to shoot a first person bow and arrow and Destiny actually has REALLY good bow mechanics. BUT I drop in and you are just so profoundly completely adrift in the new content that I can't even decide where to start.
i was unaware of this fact when i started the first time and while i always love the gameplay, i didn’t realize expacs were completely gone or how wrong it would feel being told to start at the current expac and work back(?). lowkey wish they would move past it since it’s a great game w bad entry
I've found that if you look at Destiny as "Space Invaders" - shooting waves of space bugs that never stop - it's more fun. You can't put a lot of thinking into Destiny.
Comments
https://store.steampowered.com/app/633080/Relic_Hunters_Legend/
Abject, unmitigated failure to maintain their game.
that cannot be good for the ling term health of the game.
Warframe has problems in terms of New player experience, but none that bad. Destiny been losing the rivalry since day 1.
It's like playing FFXIV if they cut patch quests between expansions.
FFXIV's "yeah the ARR content is kind of a slog and outdated in the narrative and gameplay design, but you gotta power through it"
vs
D2's "well the old content just doesn't exist anymore"
"We're a bit confusing at first, but ask the community for help and you'll get your hand on a great live service game with no downside."
New player experience is confusing as all hek, and there are definitely still some monetisation traps that just exist to lure in new players who don't know what things are worth yet.
It is bloody good though.
Great narrative, great game, all free, rival by default of Destiny.
Only missing things are a few details from events, but they're basically footnotes.
Also you will love to breakdown the Warframe designs and their skins, believe me. I need a short on Lavos, Xaku, Nidus and Dante.
I put something like 2400 hours into Destiny. Went flawless 40 or so times. Beat every raid. Solo'd Crota. Loved it all.
I got 40 hours into Destiny 2 on release before deciding it was garbage. From what I've heard it's just gotten worse.
A very fun game, for me personally, but I don't really recommend it to anyone who isn't already invested.
"To get the next bit of plot, run this activity you did last week and the week before AGAIN."
No story lost outside a few footnotes you can gloss over, and everything is free outside of cosmetics (unless you farm plat for them).
Bungie doesn't respect their players time or their money, over promising and under delivering consistently
Now Dawntrail is all you get.
That's Destiny.
Everytime I feel the urge to play I remind myself of that and their really gross microtransaction system that influenced all of gaming to be worse.
With the exception of Witch Queen and The Final Shape campaigns, the writing has been atrocious since Forsaken.
Fuck Bungie.
interesting..
I've been away for several months; I hear it's now worth coming back.
Btw, the Red War story line that kicked off D2 was spectacular. Too bad it's gone
How sad it isn't that way anymore. 😣
When plot is FOMO, you have to be there from day one. And that's a shame.
The new player experience is just so horrible now. Nothing you do makes sense because you're missing years of context.
Like my biggest gripe for D2 is locking most subclasses behind campaigns and it’s just a slog for me to get. Nowadays If I wanted to see a game’s story I’d just watch a youtube video.
Then I have a miserable experience being destroyed for 45mins until I slowly get through it. Then I just walk away mad.
Nope nope nope.