Destiny 2 has had a lot of ups and downs for it to be less than a year old. It launched on September 6, 2017, and set the gaming world on fire for a few weeks! Once people beat the main story and the Leviathan Raid hit, about a week after the game came out, people started to see what the endgame looked like and started falling off.
The Raid went over really well, but it was tough to find people to play with just like in the first game. Curse of Osiris was the first DLC for the game and it added a new mode called a Raid Lair and it was on the Leviathan from the original raid. The Raid Lair went over well but the DLC, in general, did not! Warmind was the second DLC and it had a Raid lair as well, but a more interesting story and came with a big game update. Warmind went over well but still didn’t give them the player base they wanted.
So this September, The Taken King level DLC is coming out, and it’s called Forsaken. They are ending off a major character, but I think he’s not really gone, and it’s launching with a ton of changes. And that brings us to this list! This list is going to focus on some improvements the game needs to make, outside of the confirmed ones in Forsaken, and some reasons the game is just fine as is. Let’s get to it!
25 Can Improve: Civil War
Faction Rallies changed and became focused on specific exotic ordainments and exotic catalysts tied to a faction. That was smart, because it gave meaning to picking a faction, and they added that you could only pick one faction per account for the Rally.
The factions are: Dead Orbit, New Monarchy, and Future War Cult.
A thing that people have wanted with these, though, is something that pits factions against each other. Like having a specific Crucible mode during the rallies would be awesome! You could even wager tokens to win big or lose big and give it some meaning. Looting Lost Sectors was a cool addition to the last one but it got stale and there needs to be more to do!
24 Still Great: Creatures Of The Night
Something that Bungie has always been great at is creating the enemies you fight in their games, and the Destiny games might be their best work! The Covenant in the Halo games were cool but the enemies in the Destiny universe are awesome! The glowing eyes of the Fallen, and the hulking presence of the Cabal are so imposing the first time you see them. As much as people were let down with Ghaul in the D2 story, he’s one of the coolest looking villains I’ve ever seen. And Calus in the Raid is perfectly lazy and menacing at the same time!
23 Can Improve: Change Your Apartment, Change The World
As cool as it was to see new planets in D2, they could’ve added a few more to really give it the bigger, badder sequel vibe they were going for. To be fair, they did add Mercury and Mars with the DLC, and it feels like a good bit now. But it still feels a bit empty in some of them.
There are a total of 6 planets in the game.
They are adding two entirely new locations in Forsaken, so that’s something to look forward to. I’m not saying I want a No Man’s Sky level of planets here, but maybe at least have all the ones in our solar system.
22 Still Great: “Jack Jack Has Super Powers?”
Space magic was a term thrown around a lot by Bungie when the first Destiny was about to come out and the perfect example of that is the supers. They were cool in the first game, but D2 added some new ones and they look ridiculous in action! Having a Titan wield a Captain America-like shield, throwing it, and disintegrating enemies never gets old! And being able to go full Darth Maul with an Archstrider Hunter never gets old! Warlocks are cool too… I guess.
21 Can Improve: So Many Tokens!
I get what they were going for with the token system but the fact that they are literally used for everything is a bit much! Playing through the campaign I thought they were just going to be used for each planet as a currency and that made sense, but once you get to endgame they’re everywhere! They have gotten better about giving more of them so it doesn’t take as long to get things, but having a redesign of that system would be welcome post Forsaken and into 2019. They are bringing back bounties, so maybe that’s a step in the direction of change for that.
20 Still Great: First Impressions
When the beta came out, I remember being blown away with the opening of the game. I’ve played it around 6 times now and I’m still impressed with it. Seeing the Cabal trap the Traveler is such a cool image, and you being kicked off the Tower by Ghaul is such a lasting scene. It’s very Bane from The Dark Knight Rises and I loved it!
It’s among the best openings in video games.
After the opening, it does slow down a bit and is a Destiny game, but it ramps back up by the end. Having a mission on the actual sun might be the most impressive mission in any FPS game!
19 Can Improve: That’s Your Boy?
So there are some really impressive Strike bosses in this game! Bracus Zahn from The Arms Dealer strike is legit cool, and the story of the strike is interesting, but he’s one of the few standouts. With the Warmind DLC, most of the strikes were just bosses you fought in the story missions, and I really don’t like that! They have such creative minds at Bungie and I know they can do better than harder versions of story missions as Strikes. I get making some that way, but maybe one per DLC, not two!
18 Can Improve: Put Me To Work
Getting quest for exotic weapons was one of the most rewarding things about the first Destiny! Finally being able to get a Thorn was a big moment I remember. Those pretty much went away in D2 outside of a few. They made it so easy to get exotics that most people had most of them a few weeks into the game launching. To be fair, they did go back to exotic quests in the Warmind DLC and that was a good move. I want to work for most exotics and not just have them rain down from doing a few Heroic Public Events!
17 Still Great: “So You’re The One Who Speaks To The Traveler?”
During the story of D2, they had cutscenes that started with the Red Legion symbol coming towards the screen and we got to see Ghaul trying to figure out how to use the Traveler… and they were awesome! They reminded me of the scenes in Halo 2 with the Arbiter. I love seeing the villain as much as the heroes in a story and D2 did that very well!
Ghaul has been the most imposing villain in either game.
Not everyone liked the story in D2 as much as I did, but it was one of the best ones I played in 2017. Bungie is so good at that stuff when they want to be!
16 Can Improve: Don’t Worry, I’ll Do Everything
Something I was looking forward to in D2 was getting the change to fight alongside the Vanguard members, since they were spread out after the Tower fell. Well, turns out you never really got to do that! You see them in action in the opening and that’s about it outside of a late game cutscene. They are supposed to be the best of their kind, and fighting by their side would’ve been amazing and we could’ve learned more about them as characters. You did get to fight by the side of Osiris in the DLC, but it was only for the final boss! It was cool though and I’d like to see more of that!
15 Still Great: Play Me In
I consider music to be one of, if not the, most important tool to relaying a message in a story. You don’t have to have amazing lines being read or awesome explosions happening to show emotion, you can use music for that. D2 has some of the best music I’ve ever heard in a video game in my life! I listened to the soundtrack so much before the game came out and I still listen to it often now!
Michael Salvatori is the lead composer.
The scene when you see all the fallen Guardians outside of the Tower in the beginning is one of the most emotional scenes in the franchise and it’s in part because of the music!
14 Can Improve: Gross… A Blue Mod
Now I’m fully aware that Bungie has said that they don’t like the mod system and they are planning on changing that but it isn’t changed yet so I want to talk about it some. Getting blue mods is so pointless, they just clog up your mod slots, you can only hold 50, and that fills up very fast! I wish it was just purple mods or just change the system entirely to one that makes more sense! I do like being able to choose the burn or effect of the mod, but there has to be a better way of dong all that! #NewModsFor2018
13 Still Great: Take In The View
Regardless where you stand on D2, you can’t deny that Bungie is the king of in-game skyboxes! Seeing the Cabal ships outside the Tower is a moment in gaming that I’ll never forget. The scene on Io when you see the mountains in the distance and the warships fly over is another awesome moment!
The Halo games had great skyboxes as well.
One of the best I’ve ever see is when you are on the Leviathan and you can see Nessus in the distance and seeing the Leviathan from Nessus. Bungie understands how to deliver the epic for moments like that!
12 Can Improve: You In Or Not?
Clans became a pretty controversial topic around the time D2 launched. It basically handed out Raid and Trials weapons as long as people in your clan completed those activities and people were not happy. I was/still am fine with it because you can’t get gear from those engrams and I’m one of those people that needs to get on an LFG to play those things anyway.
Something I’d like to see from clans would be unique rewards. It doesn’t have to be anything big but maybe to be able to put your clan on weapons or emblems for reaching different levels. Just something to give them more of a meaning outside of getting free weapons.
11 Can Improve: Fabulous Guardian
There are a ton of gear pieces in D2 and you can put together a ton of different options but it feels like there could still be more. In Forsaken they are going to fix the shader problems, but I’m selfish and want more options to make my character to look unique. In the first game they added gear that you could put different colors of light on them and that added a ton of customization and I would love to see them bring that back! Let us go crazy with how we look and people will grind for certain gear. I also want more base character options! They don’t have to go all Skyrim but having 7-10 options would be nice.
10 Still Great: Raid Night
Raids are the things that set Destiny apart from all other FPS games! I watched people play World of Warcraft and other MMOs but never played a raid until Destiny and it put a whole new spin on gaming for me. The Leviathan Raid is almost perfect and gives a real sense of teamwork and accomplishment, as corny as that sounds.
Leviathan, Eater of Worlds, and Spire of Stars are the current raids.
The raids aren’t so much about difficulty as they are about learning the mechanics and understanding your role. Everyone has a role to play in each encounter and you have to work as a team to get them done and it’s so satisfying to see the raid boss go down!
9 Can Improve: Say Anything
In the first game we had a voice in some cutscenes, but since the vanilla story of the first game we have not. I’m not entirely sure why Bungie decided to fully take the voice out seeing how a game like Fallout 4 has more customization options and you have a voice there. To me, there’s something about hearing your character talk in intense moments that just makes sense and that’s really missing from D2. I’m not saying to give us dialogue options or anything, but maybe a Master Chief level of speaking when needed would be nice and make sense to tell a story.
8 Can Improve: Not Ready For My Close Up
I’m not a PC gamer so when Borderlands: The Handsome Collection came out on consoles it gave us the option to change the field of view and it was so eyeopening! It literally changes the way you can play when you can see more, who knew! The PC version of D2 has the option to change to FOV but I desperately want that to come to consoles! D2 has a super close FOV and I go down all the time in the Crucible because of it! I know this is a specific thing that not everyone cares about but those that do, it’d go a long way to give it to us!
7 Can Improve: Just Let Me Play
I totally get the idea that Raids can’t have matchmaking because they are so team focused and Trails of the Nine is an endgame activity for intense multiplayer but I still think they should have matchmaking. The Raids do have Guided Games but you have to be with clan members to be a guide and its a whole thing.
I just want to play the content.
I know that having matchmaking for all content isn’t super popular but locking content because your friends fell off the game isn’t good either. If people are on matchmaking to play a Raid then I’m assuming they want to play it, makes sense right?
6 Still Great: “He Who Seeks Beauty Will Find It”
The way your Guardian looks means so much to so many people and D2 has some of the coolest looking gear in any game I’ve played. The Crucible gear is some of my favorite with the red and white patterns looking clean and the ordainments look great for them as well, especially the season 1 Titan mark. The Raid gear has a white, gold, and purple look that’s great and they added mods to them to help out in the Raid. Having a ton of shaders is also nice so you can make the gear look about any way you’d want it to once you snag some.
