So that gameplay reveal was pretty great. I'm really impressed with the cinematics, packing WAY more characterization and drama into this preview of the game than has been in the pre-TTK destiny releases combined. I went in with a grain of salt, and I'm coming out quite impressed.

Some notable things that were largely missing from Destiny 1, but are clearly present in Destiny 2:

- You get to fight alongside the NPCs. HOW WAS THIS NEVER A THING??? Anyway, it's awesome to see that you can use Zavala's defender bubble as part of a fight. Including friendly NPCs in encounters will add a new dimension of complexity to encounter design and I'm really excited for it. Plus it gives you real gameplay moments with the key NPCs, which is how you make players care about those NPCs. Well done and very smart.

- Setpiece moments. My god this was beautiful. Actually hurling the spawn orbs of enemies from the background into the foreground is a stroke of genius. Large scale destruction of parts of the tower happening ahead of the player ("in the background") as they move through the level, and then later fighting on top of that fallen part of the tower... it's a page right out of call of duty's best playbook. In Destiny 1, the ONLY setpiece moments, seriously, were when the very first ketch dropped in and flew over you, and when you raised the satellite dish on earth. There weren't any others in the entire vanilla offering. Even the xpacs were few and far between with those big, epic feeling background action moments. I honestly can't think of any off-hand, but there must have been some, right? Right?? Destiny 2 goes even farther, though. They have the backdrop of a full-scale invasion, and then the NPC you're fighting with goes super saiyan on a spaceship, and then JUMPS ON TO IT and RIDES IT DOWN! Holy god, it's glorious. Later, you get a cutscene that bridges the gap between foreground and background, and essentially flips the camera. Now you're on the enemy flagship with the destruction of the tower in the background. This design really makes the world feel alive and visceral. I'm very impressed. This is orders of magnitude more advance and savvy design that anything we saw in the last two years.

- Gunplay tweaks looked great. Having slightly snappier guns with slightly beefier enemies has resulted in a feeling that is more like Halo 3 or Reach's enemy interactions than the often floaty gunplay of Destiny. I'll grant that the player was sprinting a LOT in the gameplay reveal, which certainly helped to connect the moments together, but the actual gunplay seemed very well paced to keep the adrenaline flowing without feeling too slow or so dangerous that you had to completely back off. In fact, there's a point in the demo where the player nearly died, and then activated their super which immediately restored a bit of health. Smart. Design. This gives the player a positive feedback loop where, when shit hits the fan, the preferred action is to go nuts rather than disengage and hide. Keep the action moving and keep the players feeling awesome. Also, I really liked the mix of weapons they showed. I now have full faith that the best part of D1, the gunplay, will remain awesome in D2.

- Sound and Video. Mmmmm. That trailer sounded delicious. The fidelity of the visuals was stunning. Those animatics were top notch, and I would not be surprised (especially given the battle.net reveal) if Blizzard's animators lent Bungie a hand with those. And if they didn't, well, Bungie has outdone themselves.

The reviews I've read of the strike were equally impressive, saying it felt more like a raid-lite than like a Destiny 1 strike.

I don't want to say "get hype" but I'm very impressed with what I saw on all fronts.

Now for the speculation:

First and foremost: Did the videos show the traveler being destroyed?!? There were several clips, shown several times, where a planetoid explodes. One clip showed the traveler, in its prison, not only being flown off into space, but also partially breaking apart in the process. AND another video, seemingly from the same exact angle, with a planetoid in the same exact position as the traveler, showed that planetoid being completely destroyed. So that's a thing I'm wondering about.

Other stuff: I love the speculation that the half-dome we see in the videos is the missing bottom of the Traveler. I'd buy that theory. I really hope this game makes me give a crap about the Speaker, because he's the weak link in the plot we've seen so far. We're trying to "save" him, but the fact of the matter is... Why? Anyone notice the dog-beast thing quickly flash on screen in the video? So we get to fight some non-sentients. That'll be nice. The map (and even some of their icons) sure looked a lot like Horizon Zero Dawn... I wonder if they borrowed any elements there? Probably not.

So that gameplay reveal was pretty great. I'm really impressed with the cinematics, packing WAY more characterization and drama into this preview of the game than has been in the pre-TTK destiny releases combined. I went in with a grain of salt, and I'm coming out quite impressed.

Some notable things that were largely missing from Destiny 1, but are clearly present in Destiny 2:

- You get to fight alongside the NPCs. HOW WAS THIS NEVER A THING???

It was. In Halo 1, Halo 2, Halo 3, ODST and Halo: Reach.

Where it really caused a problem was Reach, because as in Destiny, presumably NPCs in Reach would be other Spartans and be just as combat-effective as you are.

If the AI failed to live up to that, it would ruin your impression of Spartans. If it *did* live up to that, levels would play themselves.

I think other than the idea that there's never enough time to do everything you want, it's possible that Bungie shied away from putting Guardians you'd expect to be great in combat into missions with the player is to avoid making the player feel less important.

I don't think they should be worried about that, but they might be. After all, they keep trying to pretend like your Guardian is somebody special ("that Guardian you won't shut up about") when they are lots and lots of us.

I don't think they should be worried about that, but they might be. After all, they keep trying to pretend like your Guardian is somebody special ("that Guardian you won't shut up about") when they are lots and lots of us.

Funny thought though, can sort of imagine playing as a 3-person fireteam and when that cutscene happens, I imagine the three Guardians arguing in the back about which one she's talking about. XD

So that gameplay reveal was pretty great. I'm really impressed with the cinematics, packing WAY more characterization and drama into this preview of the game than has been in the pre-TTK destiny releases combined. I went in with a grain of salt, and I'm coming out quite impressed.

Some notable things that were largely missing from Destiny 1, but are clearly present in Destiny 2:

- You get to fight alongside the NPCs. HOW WAS THIS NEVER A THING???

It was. In Halo 1, Halo 2, Halo 3, ODST and Halo: Reach.

Where it really caused a problem was Reach, because as in Destiny, presumably NPCs in Reach would be other Spartans and be just as combat-effective as you are.

If the AI failed to live up to that, it would ruin your impression of Spartans. If it *did* live up to that, levels would play themselves.

It should be noted that what we saw was very likely scripted in. If they do have AI NPC's through - Oh boy.

So that gameplay reveal was pretty great. I'm really impressed with the cinematics, packing WAY more characterization and drama into this preview of the game than has been in the pre-TTK destiny releases combined. I went in with a grain of salt, and I'm coming out quite impressed.

Some notable things that were largely missing from Destiny 1, but are clearly present in Destiny 2:

- You get to fight alongside the NPCs. HOW WAS THIS NEVER A THING???

It was. In Halo 1, Halo 2, Halo 3, ODST and Halo: Reach.

Where it really caused a problem was Reach, because as in Destiny, presumably NPCs in Reach would be other Spartans and be just as combat-effective as you are.

If the AI failed to live up to that, it would ruin your impression of Spartans. If it *did* live up to that, levels would play themselves.

It should be noted that what we saw was very likely scripted in. If they do have AI NPC's through - Oh boy.

Oh yeah, it looked like Zavala had scripted behaviors for hiding behind a wall and eventually putting up a bubble for you to hide in. BUT that's enough. He's there, he's helping, and you're there, too. Ikora doesn't actually fight alongside you, nor does Cayde, they just show up, bark an order, do something awesome, and duck out. That's how you should handle hero encounters in a game, imo. Don't pull a Reach and make them too strong or too weak by accident (as mentioned above), but rather script their behavior fully so that they are interacting with the player without any potential negative side-effect on the gameplay.

The Zavala encounter is really cool, because it takes a raid-type boss mechanic of "at this time it is only save to stand in spot X" and couples it to his character, which makes the mechanic feel more organic while simultaneously building a bond between Zavala and the player character.

The traveler is trapped by the squid ship thing, and there was a second or two where it looks like the captured Light is beamed out into space somewhere. It isn't destroyed, that would be counter to Gary's plans.

The exploding planet is likely to be the Cabal home world, after some encounter (probably with the darkness).

Are you certain? I honestly can't tell. So I went back and grabbed screenshots:

Note how, once it's in its prison, the Traveler has a bunch of cracks or faults appear on it?

And it seems that the planetoid in space has similar cracks that are even more broken apart.

And then, well, something big explodes and takes the planetoid with it. I can't tell if it's the Traveler or not (the cage/engine thing would be on the opposite side from the camera, so that's no help)

The star is exploding in that last image. This looks like a preview, demonstrating the power the Red Legion has.

Korny mentioned Cauldrons from Horizon: Zero Dawn. That could be neat, I suppose, although I'm not sure how that's too different from a Strike.

What if they're more like Nephalem Rifts from Diablo III? For those that haven't played, Nephalem Rifts are basically randomly generated dungeons that end with a boss, with random challenges along the way. Basically just a way to farm loot, with enough randomization that you're not doing literally the same thing over and over.

While doing something like that is probably a lot harder with a FPS than an isometric RPG, it would certainly be neat. Think Prison of Elders with a lot more randomization (and not just the same three rooms over and over and over). It could provide another way to get loot without relying on just doing Strikes over and over. Even a small amount of randomization could make that a bit more palatable.

Diablo III also has the random enemy type modifiers, which could be a cool addition, too, but again, probably harder to implement in an FPS and make it feel satisfying.

This was my first thought. Here is hoping we get some random gen mini dungeons!

What does the destruction of the city mean for Dead Orbit, New Monarchy, and Future War Cult? Dead Orbit was right--the city couldn't be defended.

What does the destruction of the city mean for Dead Orbit, New Monarchy, and Future War Cult? Dead Orbit was right--the city couldn't be defended.

I don't know. In fact, I haven't seen anything about factions in Destiny 2. I wonder if they're being wholesale replaced with Clans now. They did say that if your clan achieves X goals, everyone in the Clan gets the rewards. I could see it being an effective substitute.

We've seen a New Monarchy hand cannons, at the very least.

We've seen a New Monarchy hand cannons, at the very least.

I think it was in a multiplayer stream, but I've seen a hunter with a Dead Orbit cloak.

FWC chest.

Dead Orbit shoulders.

Speaking of, I really hope the banners are better in D2. D1's were just so disappointing.

Pretty sure that's his shoulder.

Here's the one Korny mentioned:

Oh yeah, it looked like Zavala had scripted behaviors for hiding behind a wall and eventually putting up a bubble for you to hide in. BUT that's enough. He's there, he's helping, and you're there, too.

I learned, early on in that encounter, that when Zavala says "get inside my bubble" he MEANS it. (The first time he said it, just before a new wave, I was way out - on the grass strip where you land when you come to the tower. I started heading back... but didn't even come CLOSE to making it before i was destroyed by incoming missiles.)

I'd need to play it more than twice to really tell whether you can use other cover as effectively... but if not, then it's actually more restrictive than liberating to have him there; you NEED to stay close enough to be able to get back before each wave starts.

But there aren't lots of us. In your game you are in a timeline where you are "The Guardian" while everyone else is experiencing a convergent alternate timeline. It makes perfect sense. Only one "Guardian" in any one perspective.

And I am fine with scripted activities to show that these characters we look up to actually merit it.

It is a ahoulder on the Titan. There was also a hunter in full DO kit.

And it isn't like they are just gonna have those characters disappear. Or if they do, the factions also wouldn't just stop existing.