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I’m a little bit biased when it comes to Destiny – my gal and I have logged just over 2,800 hours (not including idle time) in the game between us. We’ve been around since the first month of release and even bought an Xbox One for it! I check out the Destiny Reddit page at least weekly, and when the game isn’t so dead it’s typically numerous times a day. As you can imagine, I was FAR BEYOND HYPED that today was the first real look at Destiny 2. This was by far the biggest Destiny livestream and it was the first to have a scheduled pre-show – an entire hour – beforehand.
Ah, the pre-show… While there were a few discussions (a particularly interesting one with Lance Reddick – the voice of Commander Zavala, the Titan Vanguard – revealed that he plays nearly daily and is a Warlock main!), the majority of the hour countdown looked a lot like this…
With my hype a bit deflated, 10am Pacific finally rolled around and the show kicked off. The entire thing can be wrapped up in just two words: HOLY S*$&!!! From the moment it began new trailers, videos and dialogues filled one insane hour of action. There was so much information, both blatant and hidden, that books could be written covering it all. If you don’t have time to watch Bungie’s recorded stream (at the top of this post), I’ll briefly cover everything here:
- Story is going to be a much bigger part of the game! Not only will the story be bigger and better (as already evidenced in the current trailers), it’s one of Bungie’s main focuses this time. The campaign that was highlighted in the reveal had Zavala and Ikora in action, with Zavala throwing up a bubble to protect you and Ikora taking out an enemy ship with a nova bomb. @MyNameIsByf recently tweeted out a picture showing you can even check out lore in-game!
- Each location looks AMAZING! Not only can players now go from one planet to another without going to orbit (thank goodness!), each planet is now much more open. A map will display all the relevant information around (including public events – and when they’ll happen! – treasures, “Adventures” and “Lost Sectors”), and you can even go directly into missions from on the ground itself.
- Strikes, Nightfall Strikes and Raids are back! While the game is being expanded upon, the fact that strikes and nightfall strikes are returning is a bit of a surprise. Nightfall strikes and raids are also FINALLY being given a sort of matchmaking (along with the competitive PvP mode Trials) that hooks solo players up with clans that they can reject or accept.
- PvP is getting updated – not much was discussed here, but a new game mode was briefly touched upon called Countdown that was referred to as an “attack/defend” mode. Also, rather than having 6v6 matches as the primary focus (with 3v3 as the more competitive modes like the weekly Trials of Osiris), crucible (PvP) will now be 4v4. This means a bigger reliance upon each player, leading to more competitive play.
- Clan integration looks great! Not only do they work for their pseudo-matchmaking, they also work to collect loot (somehow based on everything everyone in the clan does), help players come together for activities and even have customization options available to them!
There’s a great deal more that’s captured so much better in the video than words can say. The new classes all look INCREDIBLE as well. Hunters wield a staff, Titans look like a void version of Captain America with their shield (it even bounces off of enemies when thrown!) and the Warlock looks most epic of all wielding a solar sword. It’ll be interesting to have classes more encouraged to use their supers as these days most supers are used to revive others or save themselves at the last second (or even after death in the case of Sunsinger Warlocks). Weapons are changed too, with players using two primaries (one with an element and one without) to swap between and one “power” weapon. Power weapons can be anything from a sniper to a grenade launcher! Destiny 2 also introduces SMGs, grenade launchers and several others.
It’s an exciting time to be a Destiny fan, and even folks who are new or returning to Destiny will have an awesome game to look forward to!