I’ve already beaten Destiny 2 — twice. I’m on track to do it again with my Awoken lady Warlock, just in time for the first major expansion, Curse of Osiris. And you know what?
I’ve done all that without even playing the first Destiny.
And I kind of want to go back and play that, because despite all the veterans telling me not to, I’m determined to believe that it is, at its core, a good game.
Destiny 2 is my first foray into the world of AAA shooters in over a decade. I dropped out of console gaming for years because, put simply, I didn’t have a console to play on. I could have gone for a Call of Duty or Battlefield title, but there’s something special about the Destiny franchise — just enough space fantasy and not as much machismo involved.
The original game, from what I heard, was incredibly ambitious, recruiting the voice talents of Peter Dinklage, Gina Torres, Nathan Fillion and Lance Reddick, employing Paul McCartney to compose and perform the score, and offering an incredible MMO experience never seen before.
The finished product, by all accounts… wasn’t.
“Destiny is a mechanically excellent, visually evocative FPS housed within an under-developed RPG framework,” Vince Ingenito wrote of the Xbox One version for IGN. “The endgame might hook you for the long haul once you fully understand it, but Destiny is ultimately unable to be all the different games it’s trying so hard to be.” IGN gave the game a 78.
Arthur Gies wrote of the PS4 version for Polygon, “Destiny’s gameplay is enough to make for an engaging if not particularly memorable beginning, but it runs out of substantive things to do or say well before you hit the level 20 ‘soft cap.’” Polygon gave the base game a 60.
So why am I playing a nearly-four-year-old game whose sequel far outstrips it in terms of writing and gameplay quality? Easy answer: I want to experience where the game I love — Destiny 2 — comes from. I want a peek at its storytelling genetics. I want to experience the Fallen, Taken, Hive and Vex as they were initially supposed to be experienced and I want to experience the rich lore for myself before the servers are taken down and all that’s left are loremasters making Patreon-funded videos on YouTube.
My plan is to finish the entire game by the time Curse of Osiris has come out. I’ll be sharing my path through the game here, in periodic installments. I’m also going to go in relatively blind — no guides or walkthroughs. And as I go, I’ll be recording my impressions and giving them to you here. I hope you enjoy!