5 Reasons Destiny 2 is Worth a Return

Destiny 2 is a polarizing game. Ever since its release Bungie has been on an apology tour for fans on an almost monthly basis — sometimes for good reasons. After a staggeringly poor PR campaign, a indefensibly lackluster first DLC release, and eight months since launch (which is an eternity ago for games) it’s understandable gamers have since moved on from the latest shared world shooter. If you’re in that camp, we highly recommend giving D2 another shot. It’s not fantastic, but this new DLC, Warmind, invigorates it enough that it can easily carry you through this summer drought as we wait for the next big game.

Here are 5 reasons Destiny 2 is Worth a Return.

Ok, we’ll admit it, we forgot who you are, but we still had a blast.

5. Mars is a compelling patrol zone

Bungie did a lot this time to make this new patrol zone interesting. The bar is certainly low after the crummy and highly forgettable Mercury which felt arbitrarily expanded by the removal of sparrows. Mars has notable features including underground ice caves, dilapidated research facilities, and the above ground replete with Bungie’s patented awesome sky boxes to distract you between events. With lost memory fragments scattered everywhere to find, new public events, and the seemingly constant attempts at the escalation protocol (more on that in a bit), it feels like there’s always something happening on Mars. Meanwhile, it’s awfully damn quiet on Mercury.

Brother Vance doesn’t get a lot of visitors.

4. Xol is at least interesting

For some reason Bungie cannot tell an interesting story, not really since the original Halo. When given the chance, the writers can do some impressive things with lore but you’re not going to learn much playing the games. Nothing has changed here, you’ll pursue Rasputin and learn the Hive are more than just knights and zombies, but don’t expect to care much about the ride. That is until you catch your first glimpse of Xol, the big bad of this DLC. We don’t want to spoil much, but the story does conclude with a boss fight that’s at least memorable against the rest of D2’s boss’ gallery which is inevitably an jumbo-sized baddie you’ve fought hundreds of times before.

3. The grind is there

So we get why Bungie provided gamers so many different ways to power up. Public events, weekly rewards for clan activities, random exotic drops all let casual gamers get to the high level events much faster. But that’s not what we want. It’s counter intuitive, but hardcode Destiny fans play for the grind. We want those goal posts to be way out there to make us come back over and over again. That’s exactly what Bungie has done here. You can quickly hit light levels of about 340, but you’re going to have to grind for a while to get to 370-380 to event attempt the end game content. That’s going to take you weeks of time, which will easily keep you busy this summer until the next DLC in September.

2. Escalation Protocol is bananas

Everyone who tries Warmind will have the same experience. Once you land on Mars, in between missions you’ll no doubt run across a public event with dozens of hive swarming a glowing orange tower. You’ll no doubt join the random players nearby and try to be a hero but after a few minutes realize not only are you guns barely annoying to the hive but you’re dying way, WAY too fast. These player instigated public events are only for top level guardians and you’re light level 340 warlock isn’t going to do much but maybe block a shot or two. After hours or maybe weeks of gaming, you’ll finally get to a competitive 365 to maybe become an asset but that’s just the start. Escalation Protocol is 7 rounds of tougher and tougher enemies before you get to a boss with its own unique mechanics. Destiny gamers are going to be trying to attack this for a while and we applaud Bungie for the challenge that slaps you in your face the moment you get to Mars but remains out of your reach for a long time.

You are not ready for this, we promise.

1. Exotics are finally fun

We still remember our first significant exotic from Destiny 1, Suros Regime. We actually got it from the first wave of the Vault of Glass and the collective gasp from our fireteam was audible. There was a time when exotics were impressive. We never experienced that with Destiny 2. From the get go, Bungie normalized the exotics into oblivion with the goal of not letting any one gun dominate PvP. We ran D2 for the first 6 months opting for purples avoiding any exotic gun, they just weren’t worth it.

Bungie resets this with Warmind. Finally, exotics are truly impressive. Sniper rifle DARCI destroys anything it hits with its elephant gun power. The Crimson’s active reload and restorative powers are amped up to 11 making ALMOST as fun as Bad Juju from D1. And, damn, the Graviton Lance is stunning as it turns enemies into homing projectiles that turn other enemies into homing projectiles. Lighting up one hive to see the chain reaction of several others exploding in purple glory never gets old. Yes, even the Graviton Lance is amazing. Bungie finally made exotics fun which alone makes D2 worth a visit.