Destiny 2

Destiny 2
Information
Title	Destiny 2
Platforms	Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC, Google Stadia
Publisher	Activision (2017-2019) Bungie (2019-present)
Developer	Bungie
Released	PS4, Xbox One September 6, 2017 Windows October 24, 2017 Stadia November 19, 2019

Destiny 2 is the sequel of Destiny. It is a multiplayer first-person shooter developed by Bungie. It was re-released as Destiny 2: New Light on October 1, 2019.

Introduction

DEFINITIVE ACTION MMO

Join millions of players, create your Guardian, and start collecting unique weapons and armor to customize your look and playstyle. Embark on challenging co-op missions and a variety of competitive PvP modes. Experience Destiny 2’s evolving story with friends or explore the stars as a fireteam of one.

Overview

Story

Destiny 2's events are set in the far future, where humanity is on a verge of extinction after an unspecified catastrophe. What remains of humanity lives in the Last City, which is defended by the Guardians, who were risen from the dead and gifted the power of Light to protect their kind, but do not remember their original lives. The Guardians are revived by Ghosts, robotic helpers which heal, resurrect and provide support to their risen. Every player character is one of these Guardians.

As a direct continuation of Destiny, Destiny 2 features characters and references events from its predecessor.

Classes and abilities

Gunslinger subclass menu

There are only 3 character slots on any account, 3 playable races and 3 playable classes. The player can select between a Human, an Awoken (altered human) and an Exo (mechanical human), and edit their appearance. This does not affect gameplay.

The character's class determines which abilities they can use, which armor they can wear and their class stat. Titans are the most durable of the classes and can create barricades to shield themselves from incoming damage. Hunters are the most agile and can dodge incoming attacks while recharging an ability or reloading a weapon. Warlocks recover from damage faster than other classes and can generate areas that heal themself and allies or buff their damage output. Despite the differences, it is possible to either support or be a damage dealer with every class.

Each class has four elemental subclasses: Arc, Solar, Void and Stasis. The player can freely change their character's subclass at any time unless their equipment is locked for a certain activity. The player can select how some of their abilities will work in the subclass submenu. Each class has a Grenade ability, a Melee ability, a Class ability, a Movement Mode, and a Super ability. Arc, Solar and Void subclasses each contain three subclass trees, which provide 4 traits that alter Super and Melee, while other abilities can be selected separately. Stasis subclasses have aspects instead, which can be modified with fragments and alter the character's general playstyle. The player can freely change their character's abilities, subclass trees and fragments, unless their equipment is locked, like with subclasses. Grenade abilities are different in each subclass except for the Stasis ones, but Class and Movement are usually the same across all of the subclasses.

For example:

• An Arc Titan, the Striker, would be able to select one of the three Grenade abilities to use: a Flashbang Grenade that disorients enemies, a Pulse Grenade that continuously damages enemies in certain radius, and a Lightning Grenade that sticks to surfaces.
• A Solar Hunter, the Gunslinger, would be able to select one of the three Melee abilities to use: a Proximity Explosive Knife (Way of the Outlaw subclass tree) that is thrown and sticks to surfaces and explodes when approached by an enemy, a Weighted Knife (Way of the Sharpshooter) that is thrown and deals extra damage on a precision hit, and a Knife Trick (Way of a Thousand Cuts) which throws a fan of knives that burn enemies.
• Any Warlock can select between two Class abilities: a Healing Rift that places a healing spot on the floor and an Empowering Rift that places a spot which boosts their weapon damage output.

Movement Mode determines the character's behavior when a double jump is attempted. Titans have Lift, which is activated by jumping in the air and basically works like a jetpack. Hunters have actual additional jumps. Warlocks have Glide, which works kind of like an extension of a jump. If Glide is activated while the character is ascending during their jump, the character will keep ascending, if activated while the character is descending during their jump, they will keep descending. Void Warlocks, the Voidwalkers, can select Blink as their Movement Mode. Blink teleports the character a certain distance in the direction they are moving, but works on the same principles as Glide. If Blink is activated while the character is ascending during their jump, the character will be teleported higher, if activated while the character is at the apex of their jump and moves forward, the character will be teleported forward, but will still be airborne.

The character's Super ability is determined by their subclass. Each subclass except for the Stasis ones has access to 2 different Supers. A Stormcaller's (Arc Warlock) Chaos Reach fires a beam of Arc energy, a Gunslinger's Golden Gun gives the Hunter a Solar gun that deals a large amount of damage, and a Sentinel's (Void Titan) Ward of Dawn summons a protective dome that can soak a large amount of damage, protecting players hiding inside of it.

Gear

Destiny 2 is a first-person shooter, and the weapons are the main source of a player's damage. Each character has three types of weapons equipped simultaneously: the Kinetic weapons, which deal simple kinetic damage, the Energy weapons, which deal either Arc, Solar or Void damage, depending on their elemental type, and the Power weapons, which deal the most damage out of the three weapon types. There are also three ammo types. Primary ammo is white in color, and is used for most weapons. Special ammo is green in color, and is used for certain powerful weapons, like Shotguns or Sniper Rifles. Heavy ammo is used for Power weapons.

A character's armor set consists of five pieces: Helmet, Gauntlets, Chest Armor, Leg Armor and Class Armor. Each class has a different type of class armor. Titans wear Marks, Hunters wear Cloaks and Warlocks wear Bonds. Armor increases character stats, and has different elemental types which determine what kind of mods can be installed into it. Mods are special items that can be installed into designated slots on weapons and armor to provide additional benefits to their wearer.

There are two types of vehicles available to the player's character: a Sparrow and a Ship. Ships are shown in orbit, or on the loading screens when the character is moving to another planet. Sparrows are used for travel in patrol zones. Players can also customize their character's Ghost's appearance by changing his Ghost Shell, and install Mods into it to receive additional benefits.

Items in Destiny 2 have an attribute called "Rarity". Common gear is white, Uncommon is green and Rare is blue. Those are seen as low quality items. Purple, Legendary, gear is what players usually wear. Exotic, golden, is the rarest gear, which has certain special perks. For example, Wish-Ender's perk Queen's Wrath highlights the enemies that are hidden behind obstacles while the player is aiming down sights, and Helm of Saint-14's perk Starless Night blinds enemies that enter the player's Ward of Dawn. Each character can equip only one Exotic weapon and one Exotic piece of armor simultaneously.

Each weapon and armor piece has an attribute called "power". The average power of a character's equipped gear is that character's power level. It determines how much damage the character will deal to enemies and receive from them. Some activities have a recommended power level, entering them while having a much lower power might make the enemies immune to the damage dealt by the player. Likewise, entering an activity with a power level much higher than the recommended will make the player deal slightly more damage to the enemies. Power advantages are disabled in some game modes. The player receives gear of their character's average power level from most sources, and gear above their character's power level from powerful rewards. A character's average power level is determined by the items with highest power that the character can equip, even if the item is not equipped. Unwanted gear can be dismantled to receive materials and free inventory space.

Gear can be found in chests, dropped by enemies or received from vendors. Most of the times character gear is found in Engrams. By picking up an Engram the player decrypts it into an item. Prime Engrams can be decrypted only by Cryptarchs, and Bright Engrams can be decrypted in the Eververse.

PvE activities

There are several PvE activities the player can access from the Director.

The Tower is a social space, where players cannot use their abilities or weapons. The patrol zones on Destinations are areas that the player can explore. Each area is instanced, and each instance has a certain player capacity. Most of the time the players have to be in the same fireteam to arrive at the same instance of an area.

There are several types of activities the player can find in patrol zones:

• Patrols can be started by interacting with a patrol beacon, they require the player to complete a short task.
• Missions, also started with beacons, require the player to complete a series of tasks, usually in a special isolated area.
• Story Missions are sometimes started with a beacon, sometimes launched directly from the map.
• Public Events appear in specific locations and are displayed on the map. Every player in the area can participate in a Public Event and get a reward. Each Event has a specific objective, and can be turned Heroic under certain circumstances. Heroic Public Events give more reward and experience.
• Secret Public Events do not appear on the map, they are indicated only by specific messages on the screen and have no Heroic versions.
• Lost Sectors are special areas that contain enemies and a boss, defeating it allows the player to open the reward chest.

In addition, various NPCs offer quests, bounties and challenges which can be completed on Destinations. Bounties are time limited tasks, quests do not expire and usually consist of several steps, and challenges require the player to complete certain actions in a week. For example, the Spare Parts challenge requires the player to complete 8 bounties from Banshee-44 in a single week.

Aside from the free roam tasks, the player can load into Strikes. They are available from two playlists in the Vanguard Director:

• The Vanguard Strikes playlist allow the players to complete a matchmade mission with a boss at the end and altered by Heroic modifiers. Three modifiers are active in a strike:
  • Elemental singe makes a single element deal more damage. The player's character has to be in the same elemental subclass as the singe during a strike for it to count towards a challenge. Changes weekly.
  • Negative modifiers provide disadvantages to the players. For example, when Grounded is active, the player character takes more damage when they are airborne. Changes daily.
  • Positive modifiers provide advantages to the players. For example, when Grenadier is active, the player character's Grenade ability recharges faster. Changes daily.
• Nightfall: the Ordeal is a special version of an ordinary strike with a score system and several difficulty levels. It requires a high power level, features additional challenging enemies, and has extra modifiers. The Ordeal Strike changes weekly.

Lastly, there are Raids, the challenging 6-player activities consisting of several encounters which heavily depend on special mechanics.

PvP activities

There is no open world PvP in Destiny 2. PvP activities are accessed from the Crucible and Gambit Directors.

The Crucible is an arena with different modes. There are four core modes which remain the same, one rotator mode which changes weekly, and special time-limited events like Iron Banner or Trials of Osiris. For example, Control is a core mode where two teams with 6 players in each earn score by capturing zones and defeating opposing players, and Mayhem is a rotating mode where two teams with 6 players in each earn score by defeating opponents, but all character abilities rapidly regenerate. It is also possible to start a custom PvP match with a fireteam.

Gambit is a mixture of PvE and PvP. There are two teams with 4 players in each, which are sent to different instances of the same map. Players have to fight non-Guardian enemies and pick up Motes they drop upon defeat. Each player can hold a maximum of 15 Motes at a time, and if they die while holding them, the Motes will be lost. There is a bank at the center of the map, where the players have to deposit these Motes. Banking Motes summons blockers which attack the opposing team and prevent them from banking motes until the blockers are defeated. Once in a while a single player from each team can invade the opposing team's instance of the map through a special portal near the bank. They can see enemies through walls and non-Guardian enemies are not hostile to them. The invader has a certain time limit to defeat as many opposing players as they can before they are dragged back to their instance. Killed invaders return to their instance even if they still had some time left. The winner is the team that summons a Primeval boss by depositing enough Motes and defeats it before the opposing team. Invader kills heal the Primeval.

NPCs

Banshee-44, the Gunsmith

Various NPCs serve as vendors and quest givers in Destiny 2. Some of them have their own Reputation bars, which can be filled by turning in specific items. Once offered enough items, the NPC will give the player a specific Engram and the Reputation bar will have to be filled anew.

The Tower NPCs:

• Ada-1 is the Black Armory Curator. She sells armor, armor mods and upgrade materials. She also offers Armor Synthesis bounties.
• Banshee-44 is the Gunsmith. He sells weapons, weapon mods and upgrade materials. He also offers quests for catalysts and ritual weapons, and bounties which require players to use certain types of weapons. The player can turn in Gunsmith Materials and Weapon Telemetries to Banshee to receive Gunsmith Engrams, which contain weapons.
• Master Rahool is the Cryptarch. He decrypts Prime Engrams and sells Legendary Engrams. When the player is eligible for a special reward (e.g. preorder bonus) they can usually obtain it from Rahool.
• Kadi 55-30 is the Postmaster. When players do not pick up their loot, or have no inventory space for it, the items go to Kadi. She has an inventory size of 21 slots, and when her inventory is full further lost items are deleted and cannot be restored.
• Amanda Holliday is the Shipwright. She sells basic Sparrows and Ships and hands out Twitch Prime rewards.
• Saint-14 is the vendor and announcer of the Trials of Osiris.
• Tess Everis represents the Eververse, a store selling cosmetic items for Bright Dust and Silver. She can decrypt Bright Engrams. The store can also be accessed from the menu.
• Zavala is the Vanguard Commander. He sells bounties which can be done only in strikes, and quests for ritual weapons. The player can turn in Vanguard Tactician Tokens to Zavala to receive Vanguard Tactician Engrams, which contain Vanguard-themed gear.
• Ikora Rey is the Vanguard Research. She guides new players on their quests to obtain character subclasses.
• Lord Shaxx is the Crucible Handler. He sells Crucible bounties and hands out Valor rewards.
• Suraya Hawthorne is the Clan Steward. She offers Clan bounties, Raid challenges and sells Raid Banners.
• The Drifter offers Gambit bounties and hands out Infamy rewards.
• Vault allows players to store their items. This storage is shared between all characters on a single account.
• Quest Archive near the Postmaster allows players to reobtain their abandoned quests.
• Monument to Lost Lights near the Vault sells Exotic weapons which had their original source removed from the game.

Destination NPCs:

• Shaw Han is the vendor of the Cosmodrome. He offers Cosmodrome bounties.
• Devrim Kay is the vendor of the EDZ. He offers EDZ bounties and sells EDZ-themed gear. The player can turn in Dusklight Shards to receive EDZ Engrams which contain the gear Devrim sells.
• Failsafe is the vendor of Nessus. She offers Nessus bounties and sells Nessus-themed gear. The player can turn in Microphasic Datalattices to receive Nessus Engrams which contain the gear Failsafe sells.
• Spider is the vendor of the Tangled Shore. He offers Tangled Shore bounties, special Wanted bounties for killing rare enemies on other destinations, and exchanges materials with players.
• Petra Venj is the vendor of the Dreaming City. She offers Dreaming City bounties and missions, and sells Charges of Light for the Blind Well.
• Eris Morn is the vendor of the Moon. She offers Moon bounties and handles the Memory and Lost Dead Ghosts quests.
• Lectern of Enchantment handles Nightmare bounties and quests for owners of the Shadowkeep expansion.
• Variks the Loyal is the vendor of Europa. He offers Europan bounties and Sabotage quests.
• Exo Stranger guides players as they unlock and upgrade their Stasis subclasses. Requires Beyond Light expansion.

Special NPCs:

• Xûr is the Agent of the Nine. He appears weekly on a Friday daily reset and disappears on weekly reset. Xûr sells Exotic Engrams and four Exotic items: a weapon and a piece of armor for each class. He can appear in the Tower, in the EDZ, or on Nessus.
• Lord Saladin appears in the Tower only while the Iron Banner is active. He offers Iron Banner bounties and hands out Iron Engrams in exchange for Iron Banner Tokens.
• Eva Levante is the Event Vendor, she arrives to the Tower when certain Live Events are active.

New Light

New Light is the free-to-play Destiny 2, which includes content from the first year of the game. While DLCs like Forsaken, Shadowkeep and Beyond Light have to be bought separately each, some of their content is also available for free.

Free content from Forsaken includes the Tangled Shore and the Dreaming City patrol zones, Gambit, Thunderlord, Arbalest, Outbreak Perfected and Bad Juju. Free content from Shadowkeep includes the Moon patrol zone, all Crucible updates and maps, new Armor 2.0 system, themed seasonal events, free Season Pass rewards. Free content from Beyond Light includes the Europa and Cosmodrome patrol zones, the Disgraced strike and free Season Pass rewards.

New Light introduced some significant changes to the game:

• A special New Light tutorial questline is available for all characters created after the update;
• Each character begins the game at 1050 power level, which is the minimum requirement for most activities;
• Character level is removed from the game, Experience is used to gain Seasonal Ranks;
• Each Season introduces a new Season Pass: by gaining experience across all characters the player levels their account's Seasonal Rank and receives specific rewards;
• Each Season comes with a Seasonal Artifact which contains Seasonal Mods and can boost a character's power level;
• Finishers, the new abilities used to kill critically wounded enemies, even if they are shielded.

Destiny: Guardians

Destiny: Guardians is the South Korean version of Destiny 2, which is currently available exclusively on PC. It runs on separate servers, so players from the main game cannot get matched with someone playing Guardians.

Destiny: Guardians introduced Yuna, the Exotic Armorer vendor exclusive to this version of the game. Tess Everis is not available in Destiny: Guardians.

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