Destiny, now there’s a franchise that knows how to setup an intriguing and deep foundation, to then scare away the majority of its fans through some horrendous post-launch support. That not only applies to Destiny, but Destiny 2 as well. I loved Destiny for what it was, but it’s lack of story and its god-awful writing left a lot to be desired. Destiny 2 corrected this by producing a bulky cinematic story that was captivating and interesting from start to finish. What’s the problem? They both truly struggled to maintain excitement.
Bungie’s post launch support of each title has been less than engaging. Let’s look at Destiny. There was nothing really like it back at the time and by and large, the game introduced raids and set expectations from what players expected from raids across the board and from other games. Destiny’s first two expansions; The Dark Below and House of Wolves, did very little to excite. The player rate dropped significantly at this point, which led to Bungie bringing out their big guns via the series’ biggest, finest expansion to date, The Taken King.
The Taken King, unlike its predecessor DLC, introduced an interesting cinematic story, a vast new area and heaps of new activities. It shit all over its previous content drops. Following on from this came Rise of Iron, another large content drop that indeed proved to be better than The Dark Below and House if Wolves, but barely had a scratch on The Taken King. Rise of Iron just used too much recycled content, mostly due to the small team working on it at the time, seeing as much of the team had moved focus to Destiny 2.
Destiny 2 landed the following year and went down an absolute treat. The cinematic story was action-packed, and alongside the gameplay refinements, it was clear that Bungie had taken feedback on board. Sadly, this excitement was short lived. Destiny 2 housed a post-credits scene that showcased large, black pyramid ships being activated following the Traveler’s awakening light. Fans expected this to be picked up on in the DLC, but now nearly two years later, this seemingly new fifth race is yet to be seen. Instead, we’ve had filler.
That’s Bungie’s biggest problem with Destiny, filler. Destiny 2’s first two DLC drops consisted of short, rushed recycled content. Curse of Osiris and Warmind are equal to each other, being that they’re the worst DLC drops in the franchise. Both of these drops centered around large figures from the game’s lore, but miserably failed to do anything interesting with them. Forsaken, on the other hand, the game’s The Taken King-sized content drop, appears to be taking a step in the right direction. But, is this too little too late? For me, yes.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ll give the content a spin and I do hold hope that it will prove to be as interesting as vanilla Destiny 2 and The Taken King, but I highly doubt that it’s going to pull me back into the series. Its dark theme and its serious tone seems to be just what the game needs right now. Bungie have quite frankly screwed up too many times before for me to comfortably just hand over my trust like that, however. Instead, I’m willing to put that on the line for Destiny 3, which I presume will arrive shortly before the end of the current gen.
Bungie needs to learn from their mistakes with Destiny and Destiny 2, that much has to be said. We need to see more focus on post-launch support, rather than having meager content drops that side-step the overarching plot with “epic” encounters, only to be followed by an abrupt halt and an unsatisfying end. I’m not a betting man but I assume that Destiny 3 will tackle the aforementioned black pyramid ships, bringing in the series’ fifth race. This is another area that Destiny needs to improve upon, there’s too much of the same.
Since Destiny, which is four years old, fans have had to endure the same race of enemies with minor adjustments to their appearance and behavior. This isn’t good enough. The Taken introduced some new mechanics, but when all is said and done, it’s just a re-skin of the enemies that are already in the game. Even now, two years later, there’s nothing but re-skin, re-skin and more re-skin. This fifth race (teased in Destiny’s original concept art) needs to be varied and it needs to be vast. Hell, a new guardian class is long overdue too, I’ll add.
Don’t get me wrong, Bungie knows how to make a solid shooter and Destiny has always been strong at its foundation, but we need to see more innovation on all fronts. Destiny 3 would do well to buck the ridiculous DLC road-map of its predecessor titles and just go straight in for yearly expansions that actually feel expansive. I have hope that Bungie have learned their lesson by now and they’ll be doing a lot of damage control during the promotion of Destiny 3, much like how they promoted Destiny 2 by slagging off the first game.
When that time comes, they’ll have a lot of ass to kiss if they want to win back their fans and expand on the game’s player base. The only way they will achieve this is by crafting something remarkable and taking all of their screw-ups on board, complete with a post-launch road-map that isn’t hindered by silly mini stories that fail to deliver. We need heaps of gear, heaps of new enemies, a new enemy race, a new guardian class, new supers, and some sprawling locations. Bungie just needs to regain their confidence and move on.
Destiny’s lore book is set to arrive later this year and one would hope that it teases some new and interesting pieces of intel for what may lie ahead. I’m not afraid to say that the lore of Destiny is one of the most interesting and intriguing lore from any game that I’ve played. Which is why it’s a shame to see that it’s not utilized well enough. Do you agree? Do you no longer care about the series? Have you got any fond memories from the series? What would you like to see from Destiny 3? Hit the comment section below to make yourselves heard.
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