Destiny 2 Beta Does More Harm Than Good

The underwhelming sneak peak does little to reassure jaded fans

Jared Johnson
Jul 25, 2017 · 4 min read

As console players are wrapping up their time with the Destiny 2 Public Beta, the reception of developer Bungie’s appetizer has been… underwhelming. Returning players expected an atonement for the game’s past mistakes, but instead felt they’d received an omen of things to come. Specifically, more of the same things.

Damage Control has been the default setting for Bungie since the 2014 launch of Destiny, and it’s not hard to see why. Players were given a fraction of the game they were promised, with the rest of its play-time artificially padded out by excessive grinding and randomized item drops. The subsequent DLC and expansions were marketed and received as “fixes” to the game’s glaring problems, with varying degrees of success.

Destiny 2 represents the culmination of that course-correction. This is to be the game promised three years ago. Monotonous and time-consuming gear grinding will be streamlined and expedited; the volume of fresh story missions and activities will be scaled up substantially; constantly jumping from planet-to-orbit-to-tower-to-orbit-to-planet will be a thing of the past. This will be a big, exciting new game that restores Bungie’s critical track record and dominates the multiplayer shooter space once and for all.

None of that is in the beta.

The Destiny 2 beta features the first story mission, a Strike, and two PvP modes. It showcases a few new class abilities, some new weapon mechanics, and some new behaviors from enemies. If that sounds trivial, it’s because it is. Anybody who’s played Destiny will immediately recognize all there is to be seen and done in the beta. If this is their first experience with Destiny (as it will be for PC players come August), it’s a satisfying way to introduce what the game is about and how it feels. But this beta addresses no concerns about the game, and what changes returning players can expect. There’s little effort to assuage concerns about how much the game has really improved.

To make matters worse for Bungie, the Destiny 2 beta actually raises concerns about things nobody was worried about before. Gunplay was the single greatest strength of the first game, but the beta has users on Reddit saying it doesn’t feel as good as it did the first time around.

Furthermore, the new Hunter changes have people questioning the value of the class when it comes to cooperative modes like the Raids and Nightfall Strikes, as they don’t appear to provide any direct support for their team beyond pure DPS.

Bungie opted not to show off any of the Patrol content in the game, which is supposed to feature a greater variety of activities to engage in, nor any of the changes to loot drops. They also haven’t shown anything of Destiny 2’s Guided Games features, leaving most comfortable continuing to rely on their community-made Destiny LFG tool of choice for the upcoming Raids and Nightfall Strikes. Rather than use the Destiny 2 beta as an opportunity to entice old players with new improvements, they’ve showcased basically more of the same.

Bungie has a lot to prove this time around, but I’m optimistic they’ll pull through. Still, their execution of the beta has given myself and others too much to worry about. It doesn’t help when their response to criticism of the beta is assuring players it’s an old build. Their goodwill took a toll with the release of the original Destiny, and they’ve spent the past three years trying to scrape it back. They have asked for a lot of faith with Destiny 2, without any proof they’ve taken the community’s concerns seriously.

Destiny 2 launches on PS4 and Xbox One September 6th, and PC October 24th. Here’s hoping it’s better than the beta has led us to believe.

This article was written by Super Jump contributor, Jared Johnson. Please check out his work and follow him on Medium.

© Copyright 2017 Super Jump. Made with love.

Super Jump Magazine

Celebrating video games and their creators

Jared Johnson

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I like doodling and talking about games and stuff.

Super Jump Magazine

Celebrating video games and their creators

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