What is Destiny?Destiny was Bungie's follow-up to Halo, a grand space opera FPS that would seamlessly meld single and multi-player experiences into one epic sci-fi universe. Toting a story to be held alongside cultural markers like Star Wars and Lord of the Rings, Destiny was to be Bungie's lasting legacy, an endless game that would enrapture audiences for years to come. So confident were they in the pitch, Activision shelled out $500 million and created an unheard of 10 year release schedule.
The stage was set for gaming's new billion dollar franchise...
Really?No.
The game Bungie released turned out to be...not what was promised. The singleplayer campaign, although stacked with their trademark best-in-class gunplay, was little more than a glorified tutorial with a story that was little more than a collection of random missions linked by a threadbare plot. The online side had little to no endgame, one raid essentially, with most activities being repeats of previous content. As it turns out, development on the project was hideous, and many Bungie stalwarts, including Halo lore-chief Joe Staten and musical genius Marty O'Donnell, abandoned the company as the troubled production neared release.
https://kotaku.com/the-messy-true-story ... 1737556731Today that would mean consignment to history quicker than Anthem or Avengers, but 2014 was a different time and the game was allowed to survive and, eventually, thrive.
But Destiny 2 is good...right?Well...now it is yeah. Amazingly vanilla D2 launched in pretty much the same state as D1: boring, barely comprehensible campaign, mechanics that were changed just for the hell of it and it removed/rolled back a lot of the changes that had saved D1. And there was almost no endgame again. Similarly though Bungie beat their worst enemies, themselves, and after 3 large expansions the game is probably in the best place it's ever been.
Beyond LightBL launched on October 10 2020 and is the third full expansion for Destiny 2, following Forsaken and Shadowkeep. Coming in somewhere between those two in terms of size, it introduced a new planet, Europa, an old zone from D1, the Cosmodrome and, most controversially, saw the removal of a whole bunch of D2 vanilla content, and content sold in two mini-expansions Curse of Osiris and Warmind. Whether this was a valid tactic to reduce the game's increasingly humongous install size or a cynical ploy to rob Gamers of their money is up in the air.
How do I get on this train?Good news: The core Destiny 2 experience is now Free to Play.
https://www.bungie.net/7/en/Destiny/NewLightThe New Light edition contains the base game, which is now a lot smaller given the removal of the original and mini-expansion campaigns, and allows you to jump in, do the starter quest (which is actually really good) and get your first taste of that sweet Destiny gameplay loop.
If you want to play full-fat Destiny you can purchase Beyond Light itself which gives you access to all the brand spanking new content and the upgrade pack of Forsaken and Shadowkeep which contains...I'll be honest I'm not sure. The Forsaken campaign was also removed, but the Shadowkeep one remains in game. But at least you know you'll have everything?!
OR you can just play through Game Pass, where everything, including Beyond Light, is free on Xbox or everything BUT Beyond Light is free on PC.
It's still very confusing.
Who's playing?Tafdolphin: Tafdolphin (Steam)
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