This week has seen the release of the Destiny 2 beta which included a few activities that us Guardians were able to complete. This article is your guide to the five events that were available during the beta, and it will also provide you with my thoughts and opinions on the subclasses available.
Firstly, lets start off with the thing that most people didn’t like in the original game: the story. So far in Destiny 2, this has been hugely improved. There was only one mission available which was shown during the 2017 E3 press conference, and this has raised my hopes for a fully detailed story within the full game. Gamers’ dreams for a good story in the series may well come true, and it may be one of the greatest Bungie stories yet, but we will have to wait until September to find out for certain.
Now, let’s talk about the three person co-operative strikes. The strikes involve a lot of little Easter eggs and secrets relating to the Destiny lore, and the even hint towards what we may face in Destiny 2, even while offering a fun and unique experience the first time round.
Before we talk about subclasses and multiplayer, let’s talk about the brand new social space called The Farm. This social space was available to play in for one hour on Sunday, the 23rd July, at 6pm UK time. The beta didn’t give us much of a glimpse of this space as there were no vendors and nothing to do except play football and climb houses. However, there were hints at possible activities that we will be able to do here when September comes. There were some restricted places past the football pitch which gives me hope for that certain area. You can see the area I’m talking about in the screenshot above.
Finally, the part I have been waiting to talk about, multiplayer. Destiny 2’s multiplayer has had huge improvements made to it in terms of gameplay, UI adjustments, subclasses and even ordinance. These are all very welcome changes.
Let’s talk about ‘Control’ first. This is the classic domination-style mode that you can expect from any multiplayer first-person shooter. Capture and defend the flags and kill enemies while doing so, there isn’t much that’s new here, except a few things like power ammo, starting flags auto capture and a whole host of minor changes to improve the gameplay even more.
‘Countdown’ is like Trials of Osiris or Elimination from the first game. Two teams of four go head-to-head, and while doing so they have the option to win the round by either planting a bomb and defending it until it explodes or by eliminating the whole opposing team. It’s a first to six rounds, and both teams change sides after every round. This is where I spent most of my time in the beta, it was the best experience from an FPS game that I have had in years! The original Destiny had me hooked since day one, but when Trials of Osiris was announced, I was intrigued, and it was a very overall fun experience. However, it was lacking the experience that Bungie was known for, it was a three vs three. Bungie’s games were always more well known for their four vs four gameplay, and it shows when you take a look at the Destiny 2 beta’s gameplay.
Let’s round this off by talking about the huge improvements and negative changes to the subclasses. There are three characters with each having their own set of two subclasses based off the beta. The Warlock has Dawnblade and Novabomb, the Hunter has Gunslinger and Arcstrider, and finally, the Titan has Sentinel and Striker. If you have played Destiny, then you will probably recognise three of these subclasses as they have been brought forward into Destiny 2 with huge changes. This is a great decision as it allows players that have already mastered those subclasses in the first Destiny to have a basic idea of how the subclasses in Destiny 2 will perform and feel.
Overall, I really enjoyed my time spent on the Destiny 2 beta, and I am looking forward to the game’s release in September.