How does the Destiny 2 open beta hold up?
Admittedly, I’m a bit of a pessimist regarding Destiny 2. Having gone through the ups and downs of the first game, I found myself trying to not care about the impending sequel. I had some good fun with the first game, but eventually the fun faded after finding myself with not much to do with the cool, low-level toys I managed to scrounge up.
But this isn’t a post about the first Destiny. It’s about Destiny 2‘s open beta.
More Of The Same; For Better Or Worse
Don’t worry, you’ll get to hold the line
Like the first Destiny, Destiny 2 doesn’t strike me as an objectively bad game. If anything, it’s a technical marvel, both in sight and sound. Destiny 2 just doesn’t seem like much of an improvement over the first game, though I’m not sure if it’s fair to expect vast improvements.
I’m not sure if I’m just out of practice, but to me it felt sluggish. I didn’t feel nearly as nimble. That was really the only negative aspect of my experience during my time with it however. Overall, the presentation of the story was on par with The Taken King, offering bombastic set-piece moments and actual cutscenes. If the first mission is any indication of the quality of Destiny 2‘s content, then it certainly looks promising.
The changes that have been made are quite nice as well. The class skills have a swanky, new design to the interface, and the new classes are certainly fun to play with. It’s a little odd to get used to the new skills, but it likely won’t take anyone long to get used to the new toys. The Titan’s new Captain America shield Super is fun to play with, even if it’s trite at this point.
A Small, Partial Vertical Slice
Oh noes… They’re taking away the orb thingy…
The biggest issue with the open beta is that it’s difficult to get a good feel for Destiny 2. Players are limited to the first mission, two Crucible maps, and a strike. Given that the Crucible was never all that interesting to me in the first game, it’s hard to get excited about that half of the content, and it’s difficult to say that its inclusion makes it a selling point to me.
Figures…
After all, that’s what the open beta seems to be about. It’s an attempt to sell the game to players. Sure, Bungie may be getting some good data from the beta, but the reality is that this is a disguised demo. Unfortunately, it doesn’t really make a case for itself. Where the original Destiny kinda blew it by including the first fourth of the game in its beta, Destiny 2‘s beta takes the extreme in the other direction. There’s so little on offer that it’s difficult to say whether or not it’s worth looking into.
Being a pessimist about the game already, the dearth of content in the beta indicates to me that there really isn’t that much more on offer in Destiny 2 compared to the first game. Of course, I could be wrong, but better safe than sorry, I say!
Did you get a chance to play the beta for Destiny 2? What are your thoughts?
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Falcon Game Reviews 
Thank you for the update! I am on your level about not being too interested in the new Destiny game. I never played the first one because I wasn’t too interested in it, however, I have share played quite a bit of Destiny with my friends. My favorite part is the Crucible, as the straight multiplayer versus mode is what I look for in games like this (not really a story player admittedly).
-Luna 🙂
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Thank you for taking the time to read it! If you like multiplayer, then I’d say you’re in luck with Destiny 2 actually. The biggest improvements I’ve heard of were in the Crucible as far as I know.
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Thanks for the impressions 🙂 Destiny has been a huge source of support for me in the past but I don’t know if I’ll get D2… at least not at launch. Probably when it’s cheaper 🙂
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That’s more or less where I’m at. I’m not looking at this as a day one purchase.
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I think I’m just going to skip the beta. I already planned on getting Destiny 2 regardless so, I don’t need this to sell me on it and based on your impressions, it doesn’t have a lot to sell in it anyway.
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It feels pretty bare bones, that’s for sure.
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Honestly, we aren’t interested in it as well seeing as my husband had a similar experience with the first one and I quickly jumped ship because I didn’t have many friends to play with and my death/constant dying was annoying. (This was also when I was downright AWFUL at FPS, and I have gotten better since then.)
We both had a chance at Beta and found – naw. We just weren’t interested. Anthem seemed more up my alley (BIOWARE FANGIRL AH!) and has a similar taste (though I hope different overall play than) so I think I will just stick with that.
My husband was one who was way more into the original and was one of those disappointed with it later on which is a shame.
Glad to hear your review and glad I didn’t waste the download. (I sound horrible. O.O)
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It’s kinda a tough sell. The most complete opinions on the beta seems to be of the “It’s just like the first Destiny” variety.
Anthem looks cool. Not going to fall for the hype again though.
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I’m suuuuper pessimistic about Destiny 2 simply because of the marketing stuff that occurred in the first Destiny. Felt like in order to have a good time you had to part with SO much cash!
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$60 for the base game
$20 for The Dark Below
$20 for House of Wolves
$40 for Taken King
$30 for Rise of Iron
Yeah, pretty expensive to say the least!
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i never played D1, so naturally i’m very intrigued by this, especially because it’s on PC now. I do want to try it out, but want to know before hand that there is enough i can accomplish in single player mode. I can’t devote huge chunks of days to play online with people, and only person i know will be my brother, but wouldn’t mind doing raid from time to time
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That’s pretty much my beef with games like Destiny and The Division, or even World of Warcraft. I don’t have the free time to devote to extensive raids and grinding, and I have a lot of free time right now. I’m not sure how people find the time to do the higher level stuff on a regular basis. I guess they just focus on playing one game only…
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Great review. I tried it out and although the beta is lacking with only one story mission, I’m still looking forward to playing it.
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I will eventually play it too. I’m hoping that my suspicions are wrong.
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Hey Shelby. I enjoyed reading your review of the Beta. Honestly, I’ve been playing the first game for ~2 years now and I do adore it, so I’m probably quite biased. I can safely say that while the Beta felt like OG Destiny, I did find it rather lacking in terms of content and attraction. There were elements I would love to see in the full game, as well as tons of gripes.
I am getting the game when it releases, but I’ll be doing so with caution. However, I do hope Bungie learned from the colossal screw-up that was Year One Destiny. Fingers crossed! Again, thanks for taking the time to write this 🙂
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This is an awesome beta review of Destiny 2! I played the beta and I agree with you that the beta itself was not interesting whatsoever. However, I bought the game on the launch date and I must say I am very impressed with the game overall. The Crucible has more content than in the beta, the graphics are improved from the first game, and this one seems to have more of a narrative than the previous one. Do you still feel the game is not worth the purchase?
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I appreciate the feedback, and thank you for reading!
I will say that I’ve had the pleasure of playing Destiny 2’s retail release, and I’ve been having a good time with it. My wife bought a copy for me so she’d have a fireteam member (it didn’t take much convincing). I will say that fans of the original Destiny will likely not be disappointed, but I haven’t had enough time to give a full verdict. I’m enjoying myself so far, however. I’ll be writing up a full review soon.
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