September 9th, 2014. The day where the lives of many gamers changed forever. After months of pre-release hype and years in the making, Bungie finally released Destiny to the world. With a fantastic launch, Destiny generated over $1 billion dollars for Activision and was deemed an universal success.

Financially that is. Not critically. With mixed reviews and reception, Destiny seemed to not hit all the marks to what it promised to us guardians.

Fast forward nearly 3 years later, we are on the verge on the worldwide gameplay premiere of Destiny 2. In 10 days time (May 18th) - which will feel like an eternity! - we finally get to glimpse into the future of this amazing franchise.

What Destiny 2 will actually be and offer to this passionate community is something only Bungie can answer. Still primarily an shared-world shooter? Or a full blown MMOFPSRPG even? Who knows. But based on what Destiny and it’s various expansions have offered so far, these are the 5 things I am hopeful to see introduced (and improved upon!) from the sequel when it launches on 8th September…

Story, story, story!

“I don’t even have time to explain why i don’t have time to explain.” That single line you could say epitomises the story (or lack of to some) of Destiny to date. The story and it’s campaigns throughout have unfortunately been hit and miss so far which is a shame as the potential is there.

Vanilla Destiny left a lot to be desired due to the abrupt change in how the story was to be told to the player mere months before it’s release. The Dark Below improved on vanilla (but not by a lot unfortunately) by giving us an antagonist - Crota - and a legitimate reason to go after him and stop him from being resurrected and invading Earth. House of Wolves’ journey of trying to stop and capture Skolas was a step in the right direction in terms of what Bungie were capable of from a writing sense.

The Taken King was an absolute masterpiece - new enemies, a new huge threat to our existence in Oryx and a story campaign that outshines all the previous campaigns combined. Unfortunately Bungie suffered the case of 1 step forward and 2 steps back with Rise of Iron. With the potential of being the best of the lot, ROI was far too short and disconnected us from what was actually Aksis’ great plan to destroy us. They also miss a huge trick by not having the SIVAfied lords appear in Wrath of the Machine as actual boss encounters in my opinion.

Some parts good, some great and some unfortunately not so much - Destiny has has some teething problems. But you can tell that story (and it’s plot) will become a central focus in Destiny 2. With Luke Smith the creative lead (also the director of TTK), us guardians can feel very optimistic about the sequel’s story.

So what do we know so far? We know that the Red Legion faction of the Cabal - led by their fearless commander Ghaul - have attacked the Last City. Stripped of our weapons, powers and most importantly our light, the remaining guardians must start a new journey to find a way to obtain new powers and defeat Ghaul.

With this in mind, here a couple of things I hope to see within the story and it’s writing:-

  • Better in-game grimoire integration - the grimoire and lore was missed in Destiny in-game and would be a huge bonus for Destiny 2 if integrated properly.
  • More humour - Even though Destiny 2 seems to have a current dark setting around, by giving us more humour we will relate more to our guardians and NPC’s. I mean, give more Cayde-6 and I’ll be more than happy. GARY!
  • Finally answering questions we have wanted to be answered for what seems forever! (Who are The Nine really? What side is Rasputin fighting on, if any? What are the true motives of Eris? Will the Speaker’s lies be revealed? And surely the Stranger has a more important role to play in Destiny 2, surely?)

We started Destiny with our ghost reviving us. Imagine the first major mission Destiny 2 was us having to revive our dead ghost(s)? That would be awesome.

Better social connectivity

For a game/franchise based around playing with other members of this amazing community, the social side still feels very restricted in my opinion. How can Bungie improve this? With 3 important additions.

Improved communications and proximity chat in the tower and on patrol allow you to meet more new players and potentially new friends to play with.

An in-game LFG and or improved matchmaking system, thus making it easier for solo players to find others to tackle the end-game content.

And last but not least, larger fireteams! (even raids too?) 3-player max fireteams for patrol, strikes, etc feels too restricted and this game is always more fun when you’re playing with more of your friends. Give us 6-player strikes, coming across 20+ other players on an epic public event and potentially the biggest game changer (if they re-work how they are played in D2)... 8/10/12+ player RAID FIRETEAMS! Imagine 12 players together fighting Ghaul at the end of the Cabal-based raid with huge encounters and mechanics to overcome. The possibilities are endless for Bungie. Seriously.

Better all-round customisation

Whilst a lot of the actual grind in Destiny so far to date has been about getting those sought-after weapons and armour pieces, the lack of actual customizations options currently in-game shows. Bungie can rectify this and improve it greatly with a couple of minor adjustments.

First of all, make your character look however you want them to look. Bright orange hair with a million piercings and yellow eyes… every character should be unique! Also, we should also be able to have transmogrification options available to us so we can finally say goodbye to armour pieces that are visually stunning but have poor stat rolls on them and vice versa. Another cool addition would be using shaders/skins for individual armour pieces and weapons and not just 1 shader/ornament. These small but significant quality of life improvements would make every guardian happy for sure.

Also… Bungie… Beards. We want BEARDS.

No longer chase the ‘number’

Something that became all too common (myself included) in Rise of Iron was players becoming impatient and chasing that magical 400 light level. Why was this happening? Because Bungie inadvertently made ROI the expansion the ‘fan service’ expansion of Destiny. They gave us way too many options to get to 400 LL.

Exotic engrams carrying over, mass faction ranking via heavy ammo and Want an example from me personally? I was 380 LL on day 1 of ROI and 386 LL by the first night of Wrath of the Machine. My loot drops in the raid were all lower light level than what I got from farming strikes for an entire day. That should not be happening. I was also 400 LL on literally the first day I was able to reach the cap. When i hit 400, it left me wondering why I should still complete strikes/nightfalls/etc. With players being able to reach 400 without touching none of the end-game content in either PVE or PVP, Bungie unfortunately made ROI far too easy to ‘grind’ (if we even did in this expansion) and as a consequence, players lost interest with ROI very quickly.

How can they fix this or restructure the end goal in Destiny 2? By either removing the maximum light level/level or make it like year 1 again and have that feeling that incredible sense of accomplishment and achievement when getting those final pieces you need to get to the ‘end’. I personally wouldn’t have a problem with Destiny 2 going down the path of World of Warcraft and bringing back that feeling of a TRUE grind once again. Taking forever to reach a certain level but still not even close to the maximum, that would be something that us guardians would crave for in my opinion. Have that style of level progression in Destiny 2 and the longevity/replayability would last a very, very long time. The moans and groans of ‘content droughts’ would fade away very quickly.

Microtransactions to not become more influential

Making video games in 2017 is very expensive. Publishers have to recoup their costs somehow and a way of doing that is microtransactions. And that’s no different for Activision in regards to Destiny and soon to-be Destiny 2. Thankfully so far the microtransactions have gone down the right path with emotes, shaders, sparrows and ships for example.

I just hope Destiny 2 does not become burdened with endless microtransactions as that will ruin the experience we have had to date with this amazing game/franchise.

Getting a shader for your character is fine. Using boosters to get ahead of others is not the way forward. I never want Destiny to be associated with the 3 dreaded words of ‘Pay to win’.

I am confident Activision will not do this and hope microtransactions do not become the central focus for the publisher with Destiny 2.

With all this in mind, I am very confident that Destiny 2 will be a resounding success both critically and financially. With Destiny 2 being looked after by the capable Luke Smith, and Activision themselves saying we are going to fall in love with the sequel, the promise is there for the game to live up to the current hype surrounding it.

It won’t be long before we take our next step together guardians. I truly cannot wait.

Now, let me speak to Deej to see if I can sneak in Twilight Garrison into a certain sequel I know...