The first Destiny was a game. Opinions as to its quality varied from person to person, but overall it was a fun, enjoyable shooter with some elements that weren’t as fun or enjoyable. The story was all over the place except in the game, the grind could get tedious after a while, and for some reason flying spaceships was restricted to a loading screen.

But all of this is in the past. It’s gone. Poof. Bungie apparently learned from the previous game’s mistakes and Destiny 2 is much, much more promising.

What’s waiting for us in Bungie’s new child?

The story is actually there

The Traveler is currently unavailable. Please try again later.

These are the words Guardians probably heard when they tried to access their incredible powers on the day the Cabal decided to invade Earth and allied planets. Bad luck. To make matters worse the Vanguards have fled to remote places of the Solar system.

The mission? Bringing the band back together!

The game is said to have actual story right there, in the game. The original had a weird idea of putting all the lore in external sources. A full, competent story campaign with cutscenes and all is definitely going to be a step up. For even more excitement: one of the Vanguards, Cayde-6, is voiced by Nathan Fillion, of “Firefly” and “Castle” fame, among tons of other geek cred.

Reworked loadouts

In the first game, you had your weapon setup configured according to function. You got the Primary weapons, mostly some variation of assault rifle, but also hand cannons. Special weapons were stuff like sniper rifle or shotguns. Finally Heavy weapons were machine guns, rocket launchers, and, for some reason, swords. You could get one of each categories, so no two shotguns for you, sorry.

It’s the number colours that count

Destiny 2 scraps that system in favor of something a tad more flexible. Now the slots you can fill in are Kinetic, Energy, and Power weapons.

The first ones deal pretty straightforward damage, and largely include hand cannons, assault or pulse rifles etc. Energy weapons are the ones which deal elementally charged damage, of solar, arc, or void types. The trick here is at these hand cannons and whatnots can fall neatly into either category, the damage type is the only thing making the difference here.

The last category, Power weapons, are the heavy hitters. Sniper rifles, machine guns and others. Even when they deal elemental damage they will still be categorised as Power weapons.

New places to explore

In addition to the planets you may already know from the previous game, Destiny 2 plops several more locations on your map, with, we can safely assume, a generous serving of things to do on each of them.

We’ll travel to an European Deadzone, expanding the list of playable locations of on Earth. There is also Saturn’s moon Titan, where Zavala of the Titan class dwells since he lost his powers.
Another member of the Vanguard, Ikora the Warlock, fled to Io, which, of course, we will get to see as well. There is also good chance we’ll find out some stuff about the Traveler, too.

The final planet so far revealed is Nessus, controlled by the Vex faction. It’s a very industrialized place, so no wonder Cayde-6, the robotic Hunter, decided to go there for a gun-toting vacation.

With the increased number of locations available it’s a blessing that Bungie decided to scrap going to orbit every time you wanted to pick a new thing to do. It will certainly cut down on the time you spend not playing, which is always good.

New subclasses and powers

Although the three iconic classes from Destiny – Titan, Warlock, Hunter – come back, they get a slight upgrade in the form of new available subclasses.

Sentinel is a Void-focused subclass of Titan. What it does is, essentially, create a glowing energy shield, which you can also toss around like a certain superhero. If there is a more iconic tanky thing than an energy shield, we’d like to hear about it.

Warlocks get a Solar-based subclass called Dawnblade, which in itself sounds pretty neat. It’s ultimate will allow you to glide in mid-air and throw flaming swords at your foes. I’m not going to lie, it sounds awesome, in both the original and colloquial sense of the word.

Finally good ol’ Hunters get to smack and zap their enemies thanks to subclass dubbed Arcstrider. We’re going to go out on a limb and say it’ll be Arc-based. It’ll get a quarterstaff crackling with electrical energy for improved CQC.

It remains unclear at this point whether original game’s subclasses will return, but it isn’t unlikely.

Get your own band

Destiny 2 will also make getting together for an extra hard mission or raid much, much easier. Clan management will be right there in the game, clan members will finally be able to reap some additional benefits from doing well.

Looking for a one-off group is also reworked, into a system called Guided Games. It will allow solo players to team up with clans to complete some activities. It may make things much easier for both solo players, who can suddenly easily find people to help them get through a tight spot, and for clan players, who may lack a person for a complete party.

The future will show how well it goes.

Soon

Based on everything revealed so far about Destiny 2, it appears Bungie learned their lesson, and managed to make the sequel a game the first Destiny was originally supposed to be. Improved matchmaking, better planet-hopping, reworked loadouts, and more content all around. Destiny launches on September 6 for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, and on October 24 for PC. There is still some time to pre-order one of the improved editions for extra physical and digital loot, if that’s the way you roll.

Will we meet on the moon of Saturn, Guardians?