The story of the Destiny 2

 

years of interplanetary adventuring in

Destiny 2. serious faces on everybody

this is my serious face

can't you tell the original Destiny

launched in 2014 and redefined online

console gaming overnight here was a

true

shared World blending Co-op and

competitive play an ever-growing game

that you could play every day every week

possibly forever with its Immaculate gun

play super powered abilities and

gorgeous sci-fi world we simply couldn't

get enough of it

a sequel naturally folowed Destiny 2

arrived in 2017 and Bungie has

Space Magic ever since Titans warlocks

and Hunters have been knocking heads

with the enemies of humanity in Destiny

2 for more than five years now and today

the game is almost unrecognizable fromits original form with the latest

expansion light full releasing at the

end of the month I'm putting down my

gallarhorn just long enough to put the

series in context to make sense of the

journey it's been on where it's ended up

and where it's about to go before

lightfall's arrival then this is a look

at Destiny 2 so far

(Music]

Destiny 2

there will be no coming back it's worth

it Destiny 2 arrived in September 2017

and was a return to First principlesa

bid to streamline a game that had never

stopped growing Bungie wanted the

sequel

to be more readable more approachable

and less intimidating to newComers it

remixed weapon slots and character

classes and much of the randomization

that drove Destiny's loot system was

done away with twO smaller DLC

expansions curse of Cyrus and warmind

arrived in Destiny 2's first year each

adding a new destination and a raid Laira slimmed downtake on the series

difficult end game activities this

pattern of a big annual expansion with

two smaller content drops in between

dates back to the beginning of Destiny 1

but this Would be its last appearance

Bungie started looking for a better more

continuous way to tell their story

between expansion and the studio found

it with forsaken Destiny 2's next

expansion forsaken arrived in September

Forsaken

2018 and was a moment of great change

core gameplay was overhauled Bungie

refreshed the weapon system and

updated

character subclasses with new abilities

and supers a new seasonal model

brought

fresh activities storylines and loot

every few months and a new mode

Gambit

was introduced which bridged The Divide

between PVE and PVP two teams battle

separately against waves of enemies and

race to kill a boss invading each

other's worlds to slow their Rivals down

in PVE we met a new enemy faction thegrotesque scorn and got a new weapon

type to kill them with a deliciously

Snappy bow there was a huge twist when

Guardians conquered the campaign and

found themselves transported to an

all-new destination the mysterious

dreaming City and for the end game

players there were three full raids

across the Year this was also the year

Destiny 2 got dark the death of fan

favorite quip machine cage six left us

wondering if our Guardians really were

the infallible Invincible monster

killing machines we thought and things

would get darker still in the upcoming

expansion Shadow keep Shadow keep

Shadowkeep

arrived in 2019 Bungie sending us back

to a glowed up version of Destiny 1's

Moon where we battled The Hive and

sought to unravel the mystery of a

pyramid ship found deep underground

there was more Nostalgia for veterans in

the raid the garden of Salvation which

sent us to the black garden scene of the

climax to the original Destiny campaigndie hards a 3v V3 mode with no

respawns

it tasks teams with going Flawless

getting seven wins without losing and

rewards the few who succeed with some

Ultra powerful unique loot the seasonal

model leveled up considerably seasons in

forsaken told self-contained stories but

from Shadow keep onwards they flowed

into each other and helped establish the

narrative Stakes for the next big

expansion a new seasonal artifact was

introduced that unlocks a suite of new

armor mods as you level up it is still

in the game today letting Bungie freshen

up the destiny sandbox every few months

ushering underused weapon types into

the

meta and giving players new tools for

build crafting players had more options

for customization than ever before in

other words though they were still bound

to the game's three elements Arc solar

and void for now at least that all

Beyond Light

changed when Beyond light arrived in

2020 bringing with it the chilling new

element stasis this was a landmark

moment and not only in combat it meant

a

shift in story and tone as well until

now our power had come from light a

pair

of causal Force blessed upon thethe darkness in Beyond light members of

the Fallen faction have allied with the

darkness taking on some of its power to

defeat them you must do the same so

yes

Beyond light's campaign was about

whizzing around Europa a frozen moon of

Jupiter and using your newfound powers

to freeze and shatter your enemies but

in story terms it was time for some

soul-searching to consider what it means

to be a guardian to question light and

the supposed benevolence of the traveler

and to wonder where the darkness is

really as bad as they say that's story

also saw the dramatic disappearance of

IO Mars Titan and Mercury with the

huddled remnants of our solar system

left staring at unfamiliar skies in law

terms the ever encroaching Darkness had

shrouded these celestial bodies throwing

them into a state of liminal non-being

but this Cliffhanger had a practical

underpinning as well moving the planets

in question .