Apparently Destiny 2 Had A Gameplay Reveal Trailer Today?

As the title implies, Destiny 2’s gameplay trailer dropped today. I’m posting this trailer here for your own convenience (since I don’t know where you, the reader, stand on the franchise), but what follows is not going to involve me singing Destiny’s praises. Watch the trailer first, and then we’ll have a chat.

Not bad, but I’ve been suckered into a trailer like this before, and this time I’m not sold.

When Bungie and Activision first announced Destiny a few years ago, we were pitched an open-world, imaginative, enthralling space opera experience. We were promised a huge, imaginative new IP that would encourage a “shared world” experience that encouraged cooperation and exploration… Fuck, even the early artwork and interviews regarding Destiny’s lore convinced even the staunchest of Bungie/Halo stans that we were about to get a game that could easily rival (and surpass) the popularity and depth of the Halo franchise. We got a ton of high-budget live action trailers (that of which Bungie does so well) featuring slick visuals, exciting tempo, and badass music.

What we got was something entirely different.

Destiny stans will tell you that the game is an addicting, well-rounded, tightly-controlled shooter. Neato. There’s tons of those on the market today. Great shooting, cool looking environments, and solid DI/DO multiplayer should’ve been the price of admission to make it onto the shelf, not the redeeming qualities of a game originally marketed as a revolutionary space opera. Destiny’s incessant grinding, inexcusably absent story, and repetitive loot system were bundled neatly and prettily in true Activision fashion: with a legitimately insane business model that required players who somehow made it through the bland-as-fuck vanilla content still hungering for more to BUY expansions that promised to deliver all the shit we SHOULD’VE got at launch.

I played Destiny from launch, I played the same missions over and over again, did donuts in my hoverbike through the same rehashed environments and areas over and over again, all while suffering through a script so terribly weak, I still can’t believe it’s a Bungie game. I didn’t get what was advertised, and neither did you. Destiny was supposed to be a huge open-world game AT LAUNCH, but instead I trudged through yet another Activition-patented 6-hour “run and gun” campaign, sprayed down with a glimmering coat of Bungie candy paint. Oh, and fuck the bounty system.

Today, Destiny is a game with tons of content (a smooth three years later), but it still lacks variety, flavor, and volume. It feels empty. It feels hollow. So what if the fucking shooting is tight and the graphics are pretty, I don’t care. I’ve played plenty of action-RPGs and MMORPGs, and paid hundreds upon hundreds of dollars in expansions, subscription fees, and micro-transactions. The difference between all of those games that I’ve played is that the vanilla content was what hooked me in the first place. I played World of Warcraft for three years, THREE YEARS before I was even like “man, I wish there was more shit to do”, and by then – Burning Crusade was on shelves and ready for me to purchase.

If you love Destiny (as some of my closest friends do), then good for you. I’m not gonna fault you for being into it, it’s just not my thing and I’d caution EVERYONE who isn’t already 100% sold on Destiny 2 to wait it out and hear from their friends first about the game. Destiny’s got some die-hard fans who will absolutely go to bat with bandoliers full of excuses and reasons why the original wasn’t that bad. I just happen to seriously disagree, and nobody in their right mind who’s played Destiny (like it or hate it) can blame me.

I’ll pay attention to Destiny 2 for now, but you know that old “fool me once” saying? Yeah, that applies here. If you want more Degenerate Journalism, you don’t have to wait for DLC or trudge through a fucking god awful Grimoire system! All you gotta do is follow us on Twitter, subscribe to Not Another Gaming Podcast, and check out our official shop. Peace.