Destiny 2 is Broken, But It Can Be Fixed | Part 1 | Introduction
Good Ideas, Bad Publisher
I recently purchased a new Nvidia graphics card, which came with a free copy of Destiny 2. Now, unless the game is notably well made, I’m usually not a fan of first person shooters. For the most part, unless it’s a particularly standout example like Doom (2016) or Portal, their base elements typically boil down to walking to the place they want you to go, and shooting all the dudes that the game wants you to shoot.
And while Destiny 2 absolutely, 100% suffers from these game design pitfalls, I was able to get about 10 hours of play time into the main campaign. Normally if a game is uninspired and fails to properly engage me, I’ll give up after an hour or two, especially if I got it for free. The weird thing is, something about Destiny 2 kept calling me back. Was it because it was fun and exciting? Well… no, the story and gameplay are both about as generic as it gets. Realistically, the main thing that kept me going for so long, was that instead of seeing the game for the uninspired cash grab it really is (let’s be honest here), I saw potential. This game suffers from a majority of the issues I have with big budget publishers in general, but it has the potential to be something pretty great.
And before we get started, I am fully, fully aware of the problems people have with the DLC and multiplayer, but honestly, I don’t really care about that. The following 3 posts are going to be in regards to the singleplayer elements, or more specifically, the main campaign. I’ll more or less be disregarding the multiplayer aspects altogether, and focusing on the game as if it were designed to be played on your own. Some might say that’s an unfair comparison, but it’s a little ridiculous to give a pass to bad game design just because it’s multiplayer.
Will Bungie implement any new, or clever ideas to keep their current players interested and engaged without requiring them to spend large chunks of money?
Well… no, they won’t. Activision would never let that happen. If the first Destiny was any indication, their business model seems to be one of creating a full price base game devoid of content, then selling small chunks of story missions in “Expansion Passes,” that’ll ultimately cost you more than the game itself. At the end of the day, it ends up being a $150 game, with about $40 worth of content, which they’re able to get away with by calling it DLC.
It’s easy to criticize bad things, there’s about a million websites and YouTube channels out there that do exactly that. Some do it better than others, but most of the time, all it really does is spread negativity. My philosophy on criticism is that, unless you’re willing to be constructive, all you’re doing is tearing something down that people poured their heart and soul into. The point of this series isn’t to mercilessly tear this game apart, it’s to showcase ideas that’ll turn it into something truly great.
Destiny 2 is too easy. The story is interesting, but it’s told incredibly poorly. The gameplay is obnoxiously repetitive. I don’t want them to remake the entire game, instead, we should work with what we have, but see what can be added or removed in order to improve the overall experience.