My Top 5 Moments from Destiny 2 (Year 1)

Destiny 2 will hit its first birthday in two weeks and marking the occasion is the arrival of a new (way too expensive) DLC, Forsaken, promising new game modes, weapons, and a cutscene-lite story.

The Destiny series has long had its detractors, partially because all things Destiny means likes and views on YouTube, but we don’t count ourselves among them. Sure, there are reasons to dislike the franchise like the vague story rendered incomprehensible as Bungie surgically removed it from the game to create online repositories and purchasable books of their “Grimoire” universe. Or perhaps gamers are mad at the unrealistic expectation Bungie has to demand gamers invest hours upon hours of their time replaying strikes or Crucible matches for a worthy loot drop from the RNG gods. For us, looking back at the last year with Destiny 2 wondering why Bill Nighy or Frank Langella showed up for this experience or missing Marty O’Donnell’s presence on the soundtrack, there are several notable highlights that demonstrate how good Destiny can be and make us excited to see what’s to come in Year 2.

Here now are our Top 5 Moments from Destiny 2 (Year 1).

5. Behold, the Public Events

“Cabal, again?” No two words have been more frustrating to Destiny 2 gamers in the past two months than that frustrating cry from Io resident researcher Asher Mir. Let me explain. To keep the travel time between levels on planets interesting, Bungie created “Public Events” in the original Destiny that, at certain times, spawned in certain adversaries to the world encouraging nearby gamers to team up to fight the occasional miniboss or defend a fallen satellite. Destiny 2 leaned into this much harder allowing you to track upcoming events on your map, adding fairly notable loot drops, and adding a Heroic mode modifier for every event if your team of randoms knew how to unlock it. (To this day many still don’t quite get the Taken Blight event.) These events are almost always fun and, after you get comfortable with the game, usually solo-able and a beautiful mess with several others. We still eagerly run into the Witches’ Ritual on Titan every chance we get because typically those end up being spectacular light shows of loot drops and explosions due to so many supers in such a small room. The effect always dips the framerate significantly but it’s stunning to see. Always entertaining, brief, and rewarding, Bungie nailed the Public Events in Destiny 2. Now, about that Asher Mir comment.

This somehow never gets old

4. Getting the damned Whisper of Worm

Two months ago, gamers began to notice one particular Public Event on one particular planet caused a high powered enemy to show up on the periphery of the action but not engage with the fight. Defeating this enemy caused a portal to appear in the world which took gamers to a special modified area giving them little clue as to what’s happening but proudly displaying a 20 minute timer on your screen to figure it out. As gamer communities do, we deconstructed this experience quickly, finding a secret exit behind a treasure chest leading to some ridiculous platforming challenges more difficult than anything with the main game. Gamers that cleared that were then faced with several rooms of ultra powerful enemies to defeat but doing all of that within 20 minutes gives you arguably one of the best weapons in the game, the Whisper of Worm sniper rifle. This is remarkably similar to the Black Spindle mini quest found in Destiny 1 and which yielded a similar sniper rifle which reloads the gun after 3 critical shots, but the Worm would generate new ammo while the Spindle would pull from your reserves. This means skilled players can take 3 bullets and melt any boss or enemy no matter how many shots it takes provided they don’t miss. It helps that the gun hits like an elephant gun too.

Cheesing through difficult sections is a long standing Destiny tradition

The gun is clearly worth it but the experience to unlock this mysterious and completely unannounced challenge was thrilling. The two days it took for gamers to figure out this experience felt like a real Easter Egg hunt right out of Ready Player One. Every weekend as this event becomes available, we still see wandering guardians near that Public Event spawn location hoping the right one will launch allowing them to try again to get that sniper rifle. Unfortunately, it’s equally as likely to be the wrong event, the Cabal mining experiment, which you’ll realize the moment Asher Mir chimes in, “Cabal, again?”

3. The real MVP, the Graviton Lance

Many lifetimes ago when I played through the main campaign, there’s a decision moment where Asher Mir (again, I know) offers you a reward of one of 3 potential exotic weapons which will likely be your first chance to get an exotic gun. Your options include the Riskrunner SMG, the Sunshot hand cannon, and the Graviton Lance (https://dotesports.com/the-op/news/destiny-2-first-exotic-choice-17207). In 2017, the clear choice among this bunch was the Sunshot which exploded enemies upon death likely killing more in the fiery debris. This was an easy choice as the Riskrunner was underpowered at the time and the Graviton Lance was ridiculous at laucnh. Its primary perk was to explode enemies but enemies would become weightless upon death floating to a safe distance in the air before popping causing little damage to anything. It seemed like a powerful gun by description, but in reality was one of the weakest exotics you could find.

Not anymore. This gun is a beast.

Then, with the Warmind DLC earlier this year, Bungie dramatically overhauled it. Now enemies explode immediately, creating enemy-seeking “Orbs of Death” (patent pending) that also can kill enemies causing more orbs and so on. One clean headshot can easily clear a whole room quickly. The gun I initially wrote off as ridiculous has now become a top tier weapon that is always in my arsenal as I run another strike or raid. Now, if only Sweet Business could get some love.

2. Finding a good clan

Bungie’s insistence of fire teams of 6 to take on its hardest challenges, raids, without providing quality match making was always a strange choice to me. In Destiny 1 this led to countless Looking For Group (LFG) sites and apps showing up to help gamers team up to take on these extremely difficult but rewarding experiences. Bungie clearly realized they needed to help foster a collaborative community to allow these connections to occur within the game and not force players to external channels.

Enter the clan component in Destiny 2. First, we know gaming clans have been around at least as long as Quake CTF days and perhaps longer, but we really wish gamers had picked a different word for this concept decades ago considering the history of that word. A “squad” or even “fireteam” would be a heck of a lot easier to say than “I’m getting together with the clan tonight” or “my clanmates and I are going to fight to stop the darkness.” Just gets weird.

But “clans” is what we have to work with in Destiny 2. Through Bungie.net or the app (originally) and now within the game, you can align with a gamer clan of up to 100 players to take on the various game modes. If several clan members (ugh) get together to complete a raid, the rest of the clan also gets a reward, same with PvP modes or Nightfall strikes. Additionally, doing the normal things you do in the game gives your clan points which will unlock permanent rewards for everyone to benefit from. You’re incentivized to join clans, and incentivized to play together which means they’ll likely be your first choice for your raid party.

We spent a few months trying on different clans. Some kicked us out for not playing enough. Some died a natural death as gamers went on to other, new games. We had actually written clans off as a fascinating idea but short of significant as too many were disappearing when, one late night session wandering the tower to shop among the vendors, a random clan invite popped up.

It was around 1am PST so most US gamers were signing off and it was too early for gamers across the pond to show up so I was among the night owls. Curious, I accepted the invite and found a dozen or so gamers like me who played late PST and were eager to commit to a midnight raid every now and then. These guys and girls have become my regular gaming buddies now anytime I sign on at night to play always eager to send an invite and, even better, willing to put down their progress to help me finish the Whisper of Worm or run a challenging Nightfall if I need to do. If there are solo gamers out there playing, I’d encourage you to seek a clan out because having that regular social component on top of the great game makes it even more rewarding to come back just about every night.

1. The Leviathan

Destiny raids, to me, are the reason you should play Destiny. Yes, Bungie’s 30 seconds of fun from Halo is still here and the gameplay is phenomenal, but there’s nothing quite like completing a Destiny raid with 5 other players. It can take hours, it requires tight coordination and communication, and Destiny sweetens the deal putting its best gear at the end of a raid. Destiny 1’s Vault of Glass led the charge with probably my favorite experience in Destiny ever and followed up with 3 others that were good just not as memorable. Bungie changed gears a bit with Destiny 2 and placed all raids (so far) on one area, the Cabal mega-ship, The Leviathan.

Bungie does a good job of make this place seem insane

The world of The Leviathan is fascinating. The ship itself sits on the outskirts of your solar system slowly eating away at the planet Nessus. Inside it’s a ridiculously opulent gold encrusted palatial ship large enough to literally absorb a planet in its core, it feels like the fevered dream of Donald Trump. Seriously, the Destinypedia describes the Leviathan’s leader, Calus, as beings defined by four key characteristics: his hedonism, his narcissism, his ruthlessness, and his need to be adored – it doesn’t get more Trump than that.

Over the course of 3 raids, you become quite helpful to Calus. The first raid is a personal invitation from Calus to try his challenges as a reward for killing main campaign antagonist, Ghaul, who had exiled Calus. In the end, you fight a version of Calus that ends up being just a robot copy and as you collect your reward you see several other robots in the wings waiting to challenge you. The next raid occurs after the ship consumes a Vex mind, Argos, that gets clogged inside the Leviathan. Calus calls you up to help clear it out and, after you do, the ship nearly inhales you inside its planet eating machinery before Calus warps you away for more rewards. The final raid pits you against Val Ca’uor, who took over the Red Legion army after you killed Ghaul, who is attempting to kill Calus and take his ship. You arrive in time to see Val Ca’uor destroy another Calus robot and, even during your fight, Calus uses his psychic abilities to help you destroy the Red Legion leader. You’ve now been his guest and helped clear two infestations for the exiled Cabal leader Calus who is apparently empowered by the darkness and destroying planets across the galaxy in his quest for retribution. And we’re supposed to be the good guys.

Still the raids and exploring The Leviathan (and its intricate underbelly) are easily my favorite things about Destiny 2. It requires a commitment to get there and challenges you throughout your time there, but it really is unlike anything we’ve seen before in Destiny and we hope Bungie give us additional reasons to explore the mysterious Leviathan in year 2 and, hopefully, completes this story arc regarding Calus at some point.