Destiny 2 (for PlayStation 4) While it's difficult to draw final conclusions about Destiny 2 from the beta, it provides the same addicting hooks as the first game, and shows promising hints of more to come.

Destiny 2 (for PlayStation 4)

  • Pros

    Tight, fluid gunplay. New class abilities and subclasses. New and entertaining Crucible mode.

  • Cons

    Weapon system tweaks have unclear benefits. Beta leaves out many important facets of the full game.

  • Bottom Line


There's a strong sense that developer Bungie has a lot to prove with its Destiny sequel, despite millions of people having played the original game for a ridiculous number of hours. Destiny 2 needs to strike a delicate balance between maintaining the core gameplay that made its predecessor a hit, and addressing a bevy of concerns that lost users and attracted plenty of negative criticism. The Destiny 2 beta, which just wrapped up after a weeklong run on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, shed light on some of these topics and ensured fans that it still feels great to play. Still, its limited scope leaves me with plenty of questions.

Further muddying the waters is the fact that Bungie explained that the beta build was already several months out of date, in order to make it ready for the public, so the final version has a chance of being markedly different from what I played. That said, the Destiny 2 beta provided the same satisfying moment-to-moment gameplay as its predecessor and highglighted an array of tweaks, even if it left me wanting to see much more.

A Touch of Class

If you're a fan or potential convert, there's little need to explain the major Destiny 2 additions, or what the beta entailed in detail, thanks to the enormous amount of pre-beta information that Bungie released. In short, there are three new subclasses for each class (Arcstrider for Hunters, Sentinel for Titans, and Dawnblade for Warlocks) with new supers, abilities, and passive skills. They add variation to the gameplay, and provide a way to make new elemental damage types available to each class. The Arctstrider evokes Darth Maul with its super, wielding a two-sided electrified staff, while the Dawnblade slings flaming swords, and the Sentinel does its best Captain America impression by way of a void-type shield.

Destiny 2 (for PlayStation 4)

These are all undoubtedly cool to use, but I don't think they alter the core game any more significantly than the new subclasses did in Destiny's expansions, which have gone by the wayside. The beta let you take these new subclasses and other additions into one story mission, one Strike, and two Crucible playlists. Sadly, significant portions of the game, such as patrols and raids, were absent from the beta, despite being spotlighted in pre-beta video reveals. Patrols, the open-map, free-roam mode for groups, appear a lot more promising than before and are very important to judging the game's viability and success as a whole, but I'll reserve judgement on that until they're playable.

Familiar Footing

Of all the potential questions heading into the beta, the most definitively answered one is whether the fast and fluid gunplay from the original is left intact. While there are alterations to the weapon categorization system, class abilities, and settings, picking up a ridiculously named gun and charging into a horde of Cabal felt as familiar as riding a bike. The surrounding adjustments changes the experience on a macro scale, but on the smaller level it feels virtually identical to Destiny. You can multi-jump, sprint, slide, and melee. And nailing headshots on AI enemies is as addictive as before. The super-tight controls made the original extremely playable, even as you repeated the same sections over and over again, and none of that is lost here. Visually, Destiny 2 boasts some obvious improvements over the original, namely in lighting and weather effects, even if it still very much looks like the first game.

The intro mission, first shown off at E3, is where the Tower, formerly just the social area, is under attack. It's neat to see the familiar hub turned into a combat space, with the Traveler under attack by some Cabal baddies. The mission is decent as a whole: The simple plot and story are delivered more cohesively than in the original vanilla game (more in line with what I saw in The Taken King expansion), but the general objectives and action are straightforward. You advance to checkpoints, stop to listen to voiceovers, deploy your robo-companion when prompted, and defeat waves of enemies.

There are some named mini bosses to give you a bit more pause, and scripted moments of interaction with some headlining characters to mix things up and give you a better sense of context. While you progress at a decent clip, none of it was particularly difficult, and you don't fight the attacking faction's leader this early in the game.

Destiny 2 (for PlayStation 4)

The framework is there for the story to have, at the least, some structure and substance this time around. Destiny was marketed partially as an epic RPG prior to launch, and instead only offered non-sequiturs, moon-wizards, and skimpy dialogue to go along with the addicting shooting. The expansions eventually added what players long thought would be in the game, but now that the story is there from the start, it should provide a better base for the action.

I don't think Destiny 2 will be too much of a departure from the Taken King—I hold virtually no expectations of a thoughtful, complicated narrative or character-driven story—based on the story mission and Strike, but it's baked into the game from the ground floor now.

The Strike is more fun than the story mission, since they're essentially longer, harder, and more involved missions for fireteams of three. It's not drastically different than Destiny's Strikes, but it has more raid-like influences than before, especially the boss. Instead of being a simple bullet sponge, the boss has its own cool stage with a floor-is-lava mechanic that makes the fight more intense than your typical player-versus-enemy encounter.

Into the Crucible

Destiny's competitive player-versus-player mode, the Crucible, hasn't fundamentally changed, either. There were two playlists in the beta, one with the existing Control gametype where you capture and hold points on the map, and another new gametype called Countdown that cribs Call of Duty's Search and Destroy mode. In Countdown, one team defends two bomb sites that the other team defends, and you can't respawn unless a teammate revives you. Rounds can be won by killing every member of the opposing team, successfully planting and detonating the bomb (attacking team) or defusing the bomb (defending team). The teams swap back and forth between attacking and defending (the first team to take six rounds wins), and it's a much more hardcore experience, which will appeal to a swath of Destiny players.

Countdown doesn't quite reach the stakes or intensity of Destiny's Trials of Osiris, but as a regular playlist, it's a great, more challenging change of pace. It's not the only new mode coming to PvP—one called Survival has also been announced—so more variety will be welcome, and I enjoyed many matches of Countdown despite the beta only having one map for it.

Different, But Better?

After spending time across the beta's modes, it's clear that the abilities, weapon system, and modes underwent some considered, but not revolutionary, changes. The class ability menus have all been redesigned and look pretty slick, with very nicely drawn art for each subclass and a more tree-like structure to the layout. Clusters of abilities and passive skills, such as jump style and grenade type, are organized in branches off from the main class icon. Every ability was immediately available in the beta, but just from looking at the layout, you can see the actual progression isn't tree-like in the same sense as those in RPGs that make you spec into a certain build. Every class now has a class ability with two variations, mostly aimed at buffing or assisting your squad, though the Hunter is a bit more selfish. Warlocks, for example, can deploy a healing or attack-buffing circle for the fireteam, while Titans can toss out a big barrier or a smaller, ammo-refilling barrier.

Destiny 2 (for PlayStation 4)

The Hunter, on the other hand, has a dodge roll ability that restores ammo or reduces melee ability cooldown, which doesn't help teammates at all. It's at odds with the others in that way, but I think it's also very true to the Hunter's playstyle and personality, for what that's worth. I think the cooldowns on these (and all abilities) are too long, but the timers may have been adjusted in the most current build of the game.

I put the revamped weapon system through its paces, too, and I'm still not certain if it's better than before. Rather than certain weapon classes being restricted to your Guardian's primary and special weapon slots, they now have kinetic and elemental slots, which can be occupied by the same class of weapon. For example, you can have a non-elemental auto-rifle equipped in the kinetic slot and have a void-type auto-rifle equipped in the elemental slot. It frees you up to use multiples of a weapon class at once if you prefer, and does away with the need for special ammo since they now both use primary ammo.

Snipers, shotguns, and fusion rifles, meanwhile, have been changed from special weapons to power weapons (formerly heavy weapons that only included machine guns, rocket launchers, and swords), which I'm not in favor of. The sniper, in particular, is integral to how I played and enjoyed Destiny, and relegating it to a category with rare ammo simply seems less fun, and I don't think special ammo was particularly confusing before.

Between this change and the shift to kinetic and elemental slots, the inventory management takes some getting used to, but the upside isn't especially clear to me. Having only one elemental weapon equipped at one time seems more limiting, if anything, and the odds that you'll want to use two of the same type of weapon simultaneously is low, since it restricts your range and situational potential. It does allow you to have a sniper equipped in addition to an auto-rifle and hand cannon at the same time, but since you can't have rockets at the ready with that setup, something still has to give.

It does make more sense in the Crucible, where elemental types matter less, as you get more flexible loadout options. Out of the small available weapon list, I found the provided pulse rifle to be easily the best weapon class for PvP because of its combination of fire rate and accuracy at distance, but auto-rifles and SMGs had their uses up close. More time in the full game will expose the limitations of the new weapon system, or reveal its benefits over the long term. Perhaps with raids and other content designed with the system in mind, it will get an opportunity to shine.

Unanswered Questions

The uncertainty around the weapon system is one of multiple major topics that I'll need to play the full game to clear up, though the beta at least let us take it for a spin. The same can't be said for patrols, raids, or even the game's economy, which has a big impact on how the game rewards hours spent grinding. Bungie learned a lot throughout Destiny, streamlining the game's resources and upgrade costs through a series of updates and expansions based on player feedback, but will have to double down on that commitment and get it right out of the gate to attract new players.

The hardcore fans are going to stick around, but if Bungie wants to draw in those who gave up on the launch version of Destiny, it'll have to nail the core system from the start and limit boring repetition. As for the other modes, I've seen very promising announcements since the test run (particularly concerning patrols), so while I can't judge the whole game from the beta, there's a lot to look forward to in the full version of Destiny 2, which has a September 6, 2017 release date.

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