Well I am breaking resolutions all over the place. Over the last few weeks I have been playing Destiny again, after, over a year off I have gone back to clear up some achievements. I fancy, I ‘ll get all but one of the achievements, before the sequel drops. The two final portions of DLC are a much better offering than the first two installments & the achievements included really threw my completion ratio off, so I bought the game again and got to “work”.
After playing for a few weeks I have a couple of questions. The sequel focuses, (seems to focus be on the Cabal), An amalgamation of a Roman imperial tropes and boar physiology, these squealing space pigs err toward the Roman in Greco Roman (as do the worst aspects of American & British imperial era culture) over sized, over feed and overmiltarised. They, the Cabal make good antagonists but in Destiny one, they are not represented in the raid, the raid is the high point of Destinys PVE encounters, it requires six people to play at a high level of skill but more importantly requires and enforces, communication, organization and more communication. The first raid was based around Vex enemies, the second built around the Hive, the third a mix of the Hive and the Taken, the fourth & final raid antagonist is the Fallen, but no Cabal. Now, Destiny was originally supposed to be a ten year experience, but this abruptly changed and now the sequel is due.
Question one: The “Cabal raid” How far, if at all, did Bungie get into planning the expected Cabal raid while they were still keeping faith with Destiny the firsts, planned ten year lifespan? Was a Cabal raid ever in early production for D1, was there any, art work, skeletal encounter mechanics or story outline?
Question two: How are Raid two and three related to other in terms of production. Are parts of raid three, Kings Fall. leftovers and ideas that did not make the cut From Raid Two, Crota’s End or vice versa?
So at the time of writing I have less than a week to finish up my Destiny achievements. it’s not that I plan to drop Destiny and start playing the Sequel, I just assume that the population will drop and make it harder to find people to Play with. Infact I dont Plan to buy Destiny 2 at all. I am an Xbox Player I like many other customers have bought every game Bungie have released since Halo Combat Evolved. Make no mistake some at bungie have got rich, primarily from the Halo and Xbox years. When i heard bungie planed to release Destiny on Playstation I was pleased, when i saw Playstaion were getting exclusive content for the game release, I thought this was a sensible move to welcome the new console players into the bungie universe, to make the newcomers feel welcome, when this continued into year two of Destiny, I was unhappy. This as far as i can make out has continued into the second game, the playstation getting tiny bits of additional exclusive content. Now The PC will join the Xbox an Playstation and have a Destiny title, that will run in 60 Frame per second & over with the Playstation and Xbox still tied to 30fps. This will make Xbox Customers, third tier consumers.
The upcoming Xbox 1 X, will be the only console on the market capable of running D2 in 60 fPS, but its not going to happen. The new custodians of the HALO ip, 343 industries, have already updated Bungies old games to 60 fps and released Halo 5 at a standard 60 fps more than a year ago, and it feels great. Bungie says it is not possible for D2 to run at 60 on Xbox 1 x without cutting the onscreen action down. I don’t believe this. I would be more understanding if Bungie had traded xbox customers their 60fps gameplay for cross platform play with the Playstation but we don’t get that either. There is no need for parity among platforms if we still can’t play together. What Xbox customers get, will be another accomplished game, not quite the equal of its Playstation & PC piers.
Xbox Players should not buy this game at all, but if you can’t manage that, at least hold off for a few months. If launch day sale figures on the Xbox are good, and active player numbers are high, nothing will change. There will be more microtransactions more ruthless engagement of dopamine, (instead of actual fun) plus the continued lack of parity between platforms and senior devs and publishers will continue getting rich from an Xbox player base they long ago decided were a secondary and now a tertiary concern. Or ignore me, say “Hit me again Ike and this time put some stank on it” and buy the game straight away. It’s a game that does not respect the time you put into it. Don’t reward it, the devs, or the publishers make them come to you. I have no current plans to buy Destiny 2.