Following The Collapse, the remainder of Humanity was not too happy to see The Fallen mysteriously appearing. While Humans were picking themselves up after nearly being wiped out, these tribal scavengers swooped in to pick at the remains. With constant battles against the Guardians, most notably the Battle of the Twilight Gap, The Fallen were relentless with their assaults against The Last City in order to gain access to the Traveler. Unfortunately, they were mostly unsuccessful (with both sides sustaining high casualties), at least not until they were able to section off an area of Earth that contained SiVA technology, but that’ll come much later. One of the most well known tribes, The House of Wolves, went to battle with The Reef during this time, which they ultimately lost. Now, while The Fallen are plentiful, their houses have become disorganized and their allegiances varying.
It’s hard to believe that it has already been three years since Destiny first hit the scene . It came from a developer that had, and still has, an incredible track record when it comes to space shooters, so it’s no surprise that their next project after Halo took off in the way that it did. Love it or hate it, Destiny has quickly become one of the biggest new franchises released this generation thanks to tight mechanics and addictive gameplay.
The competitive multiplayer experience in Destiny 2 has probably been the thing to see the most change from the first game, or at least the most noticeable. It seems like Bungie is taking cues from both highly competitive shooters of today like Overwatch, while also harkening back to their old series, Halo. In terms of new, the first things you'll notice are the user interface changes and the four versus four setup. The UI shows new details, most notably the ability to see what subclasses both friendly and enemy players are using, if they are alive or not, and whether or not they have their super ready. This information is helpful. To my own detriment, I don't usually adapt how I play first person shooters, but this small inclusion has made me think differently about how I was playing; how aggressive I was deciding to be, where I was going to go next. It's a small but useful things. The 4v4 change doesn't affect things too drastically, although sometimes when a big fight breaks out, it does seem even more hectic than the first game. Where Destiny 2 Cheats 2 hearkens back to Halo is in the fact that there's a noticeable difference when it comes to TTK, or time to kill. It's a good deal higher, which means it's going to take longer to get an enemy down.
Assassin’s Creed II, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves and Mass Effect 2 are some of the greatest sequels of all time, but why? Each of these games had a flawed predecessor that showed great promise, which the developers were able to take and refine into strengths. With Destiny 2, Bungie is looking to achieve something similar. After three years of growing pains throughout the Destiny 1 era, the developer is finally ready to look to the future with a numbered sequel. With an actual campaign, new worlds to explore and an update to the game’s progression systems, is Destiny 2 the sequel fans deserve or is the number at the end warrantless?
Outside of The Hive, The Cabal are arguably the biggest threat to Humanity. Similar to the Fallen, because apparently aliens like to follow one another, these hulking beasts came after The Collapse, but the difference comes in the form of rank and organization. While the Fallen are more multiple competing tribes, the Cabal are a consolidated race that doesn’t reason with other species; they only take what they want and do what they believe is best for their empire. Sure, there are mutinies, but they’re a militarized civilization. Unfortunately, not a whole lot is known about them prior to the events of Destiny outside of their constant advance of colonization within the solar system, namely taking over Mars and its moon, Phobos.
The most significant aspect of Destiny 2’s campaign is that it has an actual campaign. After Destiny and Rise of Iron’s cookie-cutter missions, it’s nice to have something with more variety and substance than "bad guy over there, go kill it." That’s not saying Destiny 2’s campaign is anything deep. Characters jump in and out of the campaign quickly as the story moves you from world-to-world. While the quick pacing keeps things moving, it never slows down enough to create any connections between the player and the world. Worst yet is the player’s Guardian who, in Destiny 2, is relegated to a silent protagonist. Ghost ends up speaking the entire time for the player and comes off as annoying. The current set up with the Ghost quickly becomes grating, and even more annoying when other characters point out your silence. This was purposefully done so that players can become invested in their Guardian, but in execution comes off as cartoonish.
Curse of Osiris does include two new strikes, but both are pulled directly from the campaign with no changes. Crucible doesn’t fare much better with only two new maps on Xbox One and PC, and three on PS4. Unfortunately, as of publication, Crucible is wholly broken thanks to the Prometheus Lens, a new trace rifle that is completely unbalanced. Bungie says they’re working on a fix, but a solution has yet to materialize nearly a week after launch.