This week the wonderful souls at Bungie released the Destiny 2 beta – this beta is/was available to anyone who preordered the game.
The Destiny 2 beta showcased 4 playable features of the upcoming game:
· The Story – Act 1
· A Strike – The Inverted Spire
· The Crucible – Control & Countdown
To start, Bungie geared up a level 20, 200 power (power seems to have replaced light level), Warlock, Titan and Hunter for you to choose from. Unfortunately, there were no player customizations – or the ability to take your helmet off – but each class was given different weapons for you to try. Players also have the ability to create 3 different characters so they could play all 3 classes – which is what we did. I was bummed that you couldn’t trade weapons between classes, but its’ just a beta. When we broke down weapons and gear we also didn’t get anything, which is probably also because it a beta – so that’s something that will be nice to see what materials you get in the future.
No matter which class you chose, the beginning was the same – you are immediately immersed into the storylines first act, where the Cabal attack and you basically have to escape the Tower, while completing a few objectives. I’m not going to spoil it for you BUT I will say this… when you meet Ghaul… you’ll hate him as much as we did. There was a collective “Fuck this guy” at the end of the story mission. Bungie did that scene well… we actually felt like we were being stripped of things on a personal level. So really… FUCK THAT GUY. For reals. But, if you can get past what an asshole Ghaul is, it was cool to see familiar foes with new shields and new foes like Cabal with fire tanks that you could shoot that would explode and kill them.
After the story, we played around with the inventory we were given and then the headed to the strike, The Inverted Spire. After a few misses on matchmaking we landed a decent team and plowed through the strike with relative ease. Don’t get me wrong, there was the challenge of not knowing the strike yet and new elements of known enemies with new shields or weapons and new ones we had to navigate but it had the similar Destiny strike feel to it and you even got loot at the end. One cool element was that the boss had 3 levels, which was marked by the floor literally falling out from under you. The loot that dropped at the end was all leveled up and random gear or weapons and the chest opened automatically without anyone prompting it. We didn’t see any engram drops, though, throughout any gameplay. We were able to run all 3 classes through the strike and get a weapon or armor drop.
The Crucible is hands down one of my favorite elements of Destiny and I was eager to see how it would be different in Destiny 2. First off, it’s now 4 v 4 PVP. For me that was the only negative. I liked the Control map and game as well as the new Countdown game, but man… 4 v 4 sucks. I like big groups and constant chaos. It just didn’t have the same feel with less players. That’s not to say it’s less team oriented, the smaller group definitely makes it more intimate and you have to work together. For players that don’t jump in with friends that will prove to be tricky as most random players we encountered didn’t turn on team chat and you were left to running and gunning on your own and unable to talk to the other players to strategize a win.
In Control, you start off with a point captured and then don’t need to wait for an enemy point to cool down and then capture, which added a faster element to the game style.
With the original Destiny Crucible, there were timed ammo drops for special and heavy weapons – in Destiny 2 there is a timed power ammo drop that’s available more frequently but its first come first served. Old ammo drops allowed for multiple players to pick them up.
No weapons felt majorly overpowered but the melee certainly seemed to lag or delay a lot with all classes.
All in all, the game feels like the old Destiny with some updates and new content. We love Destiny and are really looking forward to playing and exploring Destiny 2 more prior to the release.
Just remember… this is a beta… a beta is: a trial of machinery, software, or other products, in the final stages of its development, carried out by a party unconnected with its development.
So, let’s stop all the bashing… at least until the completed game comes out in a few months, ok?! Ok.
If you’d like to check out any of our beta gameplay, head over to our Twitch channel and watch one of our videos. We had fun… and cursed… a lot.
Until next time Guardians.
