Mike Mc Grath looks back at Destiny…
I have a love/hate relationship with Destiny. On the one hand, I love the world that Bungie has crafted over the last year and a half. Granted most of the story isn’t actually in the game but once you start reading the grimoire cards, what is there is beautiful, awe-inspiring and sometimes downright terrifying (just read the grimoire entry for the Heart of Crota).
On the other hand, its gameplay is the most repetitive thing I have ever come across in my life and its content, for an MMO, is incredibly lackluster. There is only so many times I can kill Crota or Skolas before it becomes tedious. The base game was terrible in terms of story and variety. Every mission played out the exact same way, go to this place, scan thing, kill small enemies and kill a bigger version of the same enemy you just fought. The final mission especially was just a slap in the face to everyone. It just felt and played like every other mission you had done beforehand. The only saving grace was, of course, the Vault of Glass raid which is still fun to run through because it added fun and interesting mechanics that were sorely missing from every other part of the game
The first two expansion packs, The Dark Below and House of Wolves were the perfect examples in showing that Bungie really had no definite plan for Destiny’s future. Dark Below was about 2-3 hours worth of content and for 20 quid I want more than 4 “story” missions and a terrible raid that didn’t leave us feeling like saviours of the galaxy, instead it left us feeling like a glorified disposal unit. House of Wolves felt like it had a spark of what Destiny was supposed to be but it still fell short. We got more background on the Awoken and we got Variks who added so much more to the Fallen with just a few lines of dialogue than we ever got from any grimoire card. But again both of these expansion packs suffered from a lack of meaningful content. “But Mike” you say, “you could create two other character classes and play with them for a different experience.” Hahahaha nope. The only difference in the classes is a 5-10 second super move, a different melee animation and a change in armour style and I don’t fancy doing all that grinding again just for the sake of it. Although when the Taken King came out I did level up all 3 characters to 290+ simply because, for a time, The Taken King was really enjoyable.
With that handy segway, this brings us to The Taken King and beyond. The “Year 2” update and the release of The Taken King seemed to reinvigorate a dying game and a bored player base. We got a villain who actually acknowledged our presence in the universe, an actual storyline for the content we paid 40 quid for and an amount of missions that rivaled all previous content in size. On top of that previous content got a more meaningful and structured storyline, even if it was just a few lines of text and a rearrangement of the way missions were unlocked, it added so much that was missing from Destiny’s original progression path. The Taken King felt like Bungie had figured out what they wanted Destiny to be and in a way it did…..until Silver was introduced.
The introduction of Silver to the game in October has started Destiny down a very worrisome path which could impact the series as a whole in the future. For those out of the loop, Silver is an in-game currency bought using real money. At first it was just for new emotes which is fine, I even bought some. It didn’t affect gameplay and locked no equipment behind a paywall. That was until Bungie started the Sparrow Racing League, a 3 week event which added in a new competitive mode which, as you guessed, had 6 players race on a track with their sparrows. This is where I lost a bit of hope for the future of Destiny. Players could buy an item with Silver that allowed them access to unique gear that only they could get, effectively putting a paywall on new equipment and this is where my biggest issue with Bungie’s future plans for Destiny comes from. All further content will be small events, such as the SRL and the upcoming Valentine’s Day event, that will be funded through microtransactions. Both casual and dedicated players of the game are worried about what the game is becoming and what it means for Destiny and future titles in the series. All we can hope is that Bungie is keeping an eye on all the fan feedback, taking it on board and decides not to make Destiny 2 a half-assed pay to win MMO.
Mike Mc Grath
Originally published January 28, 2016. Updated April 14, 2018.
