Think back, three years ago we barely knew what we were getting into. It was a time when aiming down one’s gun sight was something foreign to many of us, or was at least controversial enough to cause serious murmurs of discontent. It was a time where the idea of everyone having access to a Shotgun or Sniper Rifle at all times within a normal multiplayer match of a Bungie game was unheard of. It was a time where recharging grenades and stronger powered melees, much less “win button” Supers were not something many of us had ever played with in a FPS. Heck, it was a time where jumping higher that a Warthog would probably have meant we hit a weird patch of physics or were actively attempting to cheat.

And then we got to play Destiny.

We did a lot of learning. We learned how the radar worked. At some point we learned what the Orbs of Light Super kills generated were for. We began to get accustomed to a faster, more vertical pace of play. And of course we got to play a few single player missions.

The first Destiny mission was was tense and atmospheric and had unique set pieces and animations (like Fallen crawling through the walls, or the Ketch jumping in and knocking over a colony ship) and it was bookended by cutscenes. It was awesome. And the other missions weren’t, with the stand at the end of The Last Array being a possible exception. With their five minute play times and baffling Return To Orbit timers at the end of each mission, it was hard not to feel like something was wrong. “Mass Effect ends after each mission” I remember thinking to myself. “Maybe that’s what they’re going for? Maybe this will turn out ok??” And... it kinda didn’t. At least not right away.

Three years later I’ve played hundreds of missions and thousands of Strikes. I’ve battled along side many of you in the Crucible. I’ve completed challenging Raids and their even more tricky challenge modes. And yeah, I Became Legend, both within Destiny and within this community. I made an effort to step beyond my more limited role at HBO and be more involved both in game and in the community. And, love me or hate me, I succeeded.

Yeah, Destiny itself wasn’t always what it should have been. Mistakes were made. Big ones. But as a whole, the good and the fun playing by myself and with many of those here far and away outweighed the disappointments.

Now comes the sequel. Destiny 2. So much is different now for all of us. We know so much more about how the Destinyworks. Remember back when we didn’t even know what Patrol was?! This time around we have at least some significant sense of what Destiny 2 will be. Sure, we hope we’ll be surprised and delighted, but I think we’re all a good bit more cautious and realistic about what the next three years will bring, which is a good thing.

Homecoming

We’re back to a mission that feels good in the same way that first mission of Destiny did. There are proper, hand crafted encounters instead of just enemies kinda arranged in a Patrol space. There are custom, unique animations everywhere from crumbling pieces of the tower to the attacks that are performed by members of the Vanguard. And there’s plenty of voiced dialogue instead of just our Ghost not saying anything too important.

The Cabal are back with some new units and multiple improvements to their pre-existing troops.

Their grunts have more animations and attacks. They can plant mines at your feet or charge you with a powerful melee. They are quick to counterattack if you get up in their face.

Psions can snipe, can dash from cover to cover, and can literally force you UP out of cover.

The big missile units are more deadly than ever with their slowing, blinding, cluster missiles and their huge pinpoint accurate pulsed energy weapon.

As others have noted, the mission doesn’t do very much to introduce us to The City or why it is so important, but for those like me who understand the lore, watching Cabal ships rain missiles down on burning neighborhoods of what was previously the only safe place on Earth... it was heartbreaking.

I thought the mood of the Vanguard was fairly well done. They each had their own objective that I hope will play into later missions feature them and their points of view, but they all seemed confident we’d get through this. And why shouldn’t they have been?

If things had gone to plan we would have lost thousands of civilians and maybe a few unfortunate Guardians, but for the most part, our unkillable superheroes were going to land on every Cabal ship in the sky and kill each and every Cabal aboard while maybe dying a few times themselves. Certainly, this attack would still be a tragedy by morning, but it would be a tragedy that was already over and something to recover from and learn from... And then Gary suppressed the Traveler.

Homecoming wasn’t a long mission, but I liked it and would be very pleased if every Destiny mission had as much going on and as much quality. It also was one of the firsts times that Destiny’s seamless matchmaking was used enhance both the gameplay and the story. Sure, having a Guardian scream in on their sparrow and bail you out of a Public Event was neat, but this showed a small glimpse of what having players randomly show up could really be used for. I’d love it if some of the bigger missions were said to be calling in several Guardians and along the way at key points multiple Guardians were randomly there to support you, and you them.

The Inverted Spire

Overall, I liked this Strike. There were multiple memorable encounters (the Cabal jumping out of their bunkers in a Phalanx / Grunt formation with Snipers and a big missile guy supporting them, the battle in the circular area of the drilling platform, dogging the drill bits), and it had a great sense of scale and progression. Seeing the tops of the several drills in the distance, moving closer to see the drill bits, getting closer still as we boarded a drill, and finally getting up close and personal as the huge drill bits swung dangerously nearby? I loved it!

The final boss was somewhere between ok and pretty good. It had multiple phases. Multiple “forms” and a variety of attacks from quick accurate machine gun fire to, sustained artillery fire, to its single shot stunning heavy cannon. Not to mention its ground pound attack in the middle level. My only real complaint about the boss fight was the poorly tuned ammo economy that saw me run out of ammo in my kinetic weapon every time and occasionally saw me run completely out of ammo all together. But that will be fixed.

Really, I think this is one of the strongest Strikes in all of Destiny. It has size. It has challenge. It has a good, difficult boss fight. There’s not really much more I want out of a Strike!

The Crucible

I like the updated Crucible quite a lot. The new, slimed down form of Control promoted moving around the map in a way that we rarely saw in Destiny. It made sense and was even necessary to go capture A and C. Maybe it was just the map being good, but I thought Control played better than ever.

Countdown was interesting and got really good the few times four of us got together as a team and figured out our roles. I do wish the Revive Tokens system was a little more forgiving / simpler though. Just give us two revives per team and be done with it. Figuring out who can and can’t revive who in the middle of a battle wasn’t that great an experience.

As for the gameplay itself... it felt surprisingly balanced. Especially on the gunplay side. Sure, I got killed by that one kinetic pulse rifle a good bit, but SMGs and Scout Rifles were both powerful and dangerous, too. When I was on my game, my Does Not Computer Scout Rifle was very hard for the enemy to beat. But the people I played with felt the same about their varying guns as well.

The interplay between charged melees, grenades, class abilities, and Supers did need some work. I was very pleased with the changes to grenades. The Striker Lightning grenade got a significant delay that allowed you to get out of the way before it started killing everyone not paying attention. Both the Hunter’s Swarm grenade and the Striker’s pulse grenade got a significant boost that made them viable options... with the Pulse grenade perhaps being too good.

The melee situation was... acceptable. The new “nerfed” Striker shoulder charge remained a potent weapons in my arsenal but was also limited enough by its cooldown that even a team of four Strikers would not be overwhelmingly annoying to an enemy team or to me if I was on the receiving end.

The Sentinel’s Force Barrier ability was still one of those things that will largely be relegated to PvE since it would only ever activate on the off chance you weren’t shoulder charged or throwing knifed to death first... which was not very often.

The Hunter’s throwing knife felt a little under powered to me. With my Destiny 1 Hunter, I’d often use the heaviest Scout Rifle or Hand Cannon I could and rely on my knife for a one or two shot + one throw kill. It seemed I had to deal out more damage to an enemy before the throwing knife would win me an encounter and I felt I lost a good few more encounters because of the “wasted” time using my knife penalized me with. The time it took to throw the knife all too often was overshadowed by the amount of damage an enemy could do with his gun in that same amount of time.

The new class abilities were... inconsistent. I liked the tall Titan wall the best. Too often the short one didn’t actually do its job because of enemies on higher ground or because of how easy it was to jump up and send down gunfire or grenades on my position. By comparison, tall wall saved me several time by giving me a lane to retreat down.

The Hunter’s two class abilities were... very lacking. Instantly reloading my gun was just not very effective. I already have two primaries and was doing a good job with ammo management. If I was out of bullets I was usually also pretty hurt from a prolonged encounter and having more bullets immediately did nothing but tempt me to place myself back into danger that I should have stayed out of. The melee reloading ability was better, but only a bit. There were certainly times I got an enemy because I got a second throwing knife, but there were several times where I was one step too far away and basically wasted my dodge’s special ability.

Neither of the abilities seemed comparable to the Titan’s ability to block off a lane. At the bare minimum, I’d like to see the melee recharge ability work without the limitation of having to be near an enemy. But honestly, the Hunters need to get something more about of their class ability. How about starting health regen or just granting +25% health on dodge? Or how about activating a five second cloak letting a hunter slip away or set up an ambush? Or maybe double the power of their next attack or something similar.

Finally, Supers:

I liked the new Fists of Havoc, especially the way it had Aftermath active. I got a lot of kills with direct attacks or shoulder charges but I got a few sweet kills with the Aftermath effect too. Plus it just felt powerful to leave multiple sparking areas of effect behind me.

Sentinel Shield was actually more limited than I thought it would be, and I was glad for that. It could still grant you easy kills but its single shield throw + shoulder-charge-only attacks left room for Fist of Havoc’s larger area of effect to be valuable.

Pole Dancing looks like it will be pretty darn scary in others’ experienced hands. The various combo attacks and dodges might be very hard to stop. Which is just fine.

The version of Golden Gun we had was pretty bad for Crucible gameplay. With a maximum of four enemies, its six shots and woefully short duration made it far too hard to use effectively. Maybe the six shot version should not have the big power up moment. It could instead activate at your side immediately and you could then use it to counter Supering enemies who are already pretty close to being in range to smash your face in. That would be a cool way to make it viable and different from the longer duration but fewer shots and windup of the more familiar Golden Gun ability.

Oh, and Warlocks were also present. :p

Mostly they temporarily floofed overhead before I shot them out of the sky. The new Nova Bomb is super scary... looking. It should be a good 25% faster and the submunitions should track better and farther more like one hit kill Axion Bolts than things that will mostly just hit the ground or explode without reaching an enemy. Dawn Blade seemed surprisingly ineffective. Lots of fire and fury... but also a lot of misses. Plus, it’s not like Warlocks were lacking the ability to floof! Now they floof even more! My Scout Rifle approved of this turn of events.

In the end, I had a great time with the Destiny 2 beta. Everything I played from the story mission to the Strike to the Crucible felt great. And, perhaps more importantly, there were no moments where a mission ended in a bewildering, cutsceneless countdown after a disappointing short amount of gameplay. This time, were no points that gave me pause or made me Doubt for the Future.

Sure, if there were no changes in the final game I’d feel sad for Hunters who wouldn’t get a comparable class ability, and I’d be annoyed that I can only use my Super once per match and only at the end of a Crucible match where it usually doesn’t really matter... But if all of Destiny 2 is of the quality of the parts I played, it will be a much better game than Destiny.

P.S. Whirlwind next Update.