Destiny 2 – Final Review

This review will be short because I want to focus  on the multiplayer aspects of the game and to see my thoughts on the single player aspect you can click here.

Now in the end of this review I will give my thoughts on Destiny 2 as a whole and if multiplayer heightened my impression from the single player or dampened it .

The clan system in Destiny has had a huge overhaul allowing your clan to rank up and receive different buffs towards XP gained or loot drops, and with this comes a sense of companionship and a personal attachment to your clan mates.

Firstly not much has changed in the regards to strike playlists and the nightfall progression, with  minor tweaks and challenges added to these to give them more of a glimmer to catch the eye of a player.  Strikes can be done via matchmaking or with friends/clan mates etc.  As of now there isn’t a great amount of strikes available and you will end up playing the same ones repeatedly as matchmaking as it  was in D1 is a tad lacking, although jumping in with your friends is always a heightened experience and the more you play the more you seem to have a better understanding of how to approach each one.

Nightfalls in D2 are grueling but rewarding, taking a normal strike and turning it up to 11 in regards to the enemies, Also added are modifiers that can change the flow greatly.  Rotating elemental burn seems to be in most of them as well as a time trial like modifier where you can kill enemies for added seconds to the countdown or jump through rings which adds to the platformer aspect of Destiny.  At the end of a nightfall you do end up getting some pretty decent loot which is always a plus for low light characters.  Typically a Nightfall is an experience you need to be in a fireteam to handle but a new and long awaited feature has been brought in and this is called ” Guided Games”. What this does is allows you to team up with a random clan of 2 people looking for new recruits to the clan or simply trying to find their third to do the nightfall. On the other side, your clan can perform the same thing, swearing to an oath before every guided game to be friendly and helpful to the random who is joining in and to not be toxic, this reflects on the clan as well as the third member can rate their experience with the clan. I tried this feature from a one man stand point and from the Clan stand point and for the most part it works, which is nice knowing you never have to worry about finding two others to make a fire team.

Crucible is still as fun as it was before albeit some changes to your loadouts as shotguns and sniper rifles take the heavy weapon slot and use the same rounds as your Rocket Launcher, this makes shotgunning less common and a method best saved for when needed. The only game modes available at this time are Clash, Domination, Supremacy, Countdown and Elimination with the last two being specific to competitive mode .  The maps are varied and the only real downside is the playlists are divided into casual and competitive which hinders your ability to choose the game mode you want to play. Want to play Clash only? too bad.  Trials returns branded as Trials of the nine and much like Trials of Osiris you play competitively in a sanctioned game mode to complete a card of wins or losses, with wins being your main goal as you can receive high end gear out of it , The biggest change being the move from 3V3 to 4V4 , but this works in favor of the quality of each match.

Last on this multiplayer review will have to be the one thing that every Destiny fan dreads or dreams of : The raid.

The first raid within Destiny 2 is called Leviathan . This takes place on a gigantic Cabal ship hovering in the atmosphere around Nessus.  I have completed this raid multiple times at this point and to be honest, it’s big, real big.   The sheer size of this Raid is crazy , and well detailed to boot. Often  I Found myself admiring Cabal architecture and taking in the visuals . As far as the gameplay within the Leviathan, it is well varied with each challenge in the raid being a different concept, there is a rotation based wave challenge, a stealth based portion similar to Vault of Glass and a new concept in the room called The Gauntlet which involves two players running through a race track calling out specific targets. Finally we get to the final room of the raid which is the Cabal emperor himself , Calus.  This fight is ruthless and it requires you and your team to be on point with coordination and often times ends with failure, but that one time that things go according to plan and you hit the end of the raid, it is truly glorious and worth the struggle.

In this raid there are no check points but a very intriguing idea . Within the bowels of this massive ship there is a winding labyrinth that connects to each room of the raid and as you explore the depths of the maze you realize how much effort was put into making this raid unique and challenging in many ways .   All in all , for a first raid in Destiny 2 , they could not have hit a higher note than with Leviathan, the scale, the challenge, the visuals all add up to an engrossing experience.  Guided games is also available for the raid as well if you don’t mind a wait in queue.

In the end , the multiplayer has only minor missteps with the lack of game mode options but makes up for it with the PVE based content and the arrival of guided games delivering a fun experience for both new and old players to the series.

So, with all of this put together with my original score of 9/10 , we get: