I really enjoyed this game up until Beyond Light, that's when I stopped playing a while ago (soon after the move to Steam). Just recently I found myself remembering all the parts I really did like; the gun play, the initial story telling, the scenery. I thought, "Hey, why don't I re-download it, play through all the parts I liked and then try out the new stuff afterwards with a fresh look?"

Except, you cannot do that. They removed everything but the latest 3 DLCs from the game. There isn't a base game any more. You cannot play the main campaign or the two free DLCs that followed it. You cannot even play the paid one, which I own, after that. You would have to start at Shadowkeep and read their in-game, sticky note timeline to get a spark-notes summary of all the cool things you missed which they removed for no ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ reason.

This is the most infuriating decision ever for me. There is quite literally zero reason for me to ever touch this product again. A huge part of why I enjoyed Destiny was the story. Having both excellent gameplay AND an interesting story was why I played it over other games that only had one or the other. Not being able to play more than half the game I paid for due to arbitrary limitations designed to force you to pay hundreds of dollars for DLC is disgusting.

I loath what Bungie has become as a company and what they've done to a game I loved.

TLDR if you don't wanna read any of this;
+Gameplay usually feels very good, only cc feels weird at times
+Gunplay feels really good
+Sounds are typically really pleasing
+Have heard crafting is pretty good, never got around to it, but heard from friends it was a good step
-Used to be based around it's story, but newer players and older players can no longer access actual gameplay for the story that's currently going on, if they ever add back the original story so that the story makes more sense, would have a long think about changing this review
-Pretty predatory monetization
-Class balance, when last played, felt very funky at times
-Hefty price sink to play anything beyond the tip of the iceberg of content
-The tutorial/current intro is notoriously bad
**If you care about the story would suggest not getting into this or looking up recaps or playthroughs of past stories so you can understand what's going on. Still the game can be expensive to get into and has some scary monetization/ fomo. But if you can get through that the gunplay feels good and the game feels pretty alright.


Destiny 2,or more so, Destiny in general has been something have been personally a fan of for a long while. Was never able to play Destiny 1 nor play Destiny 2 when it was paid, however watched an absolute immense amount of videos about it! Loved everything I saw, and was really excited to play the game one day! After Blizzard made it free to play, had so much fun solo and faffing around with friends. The intro was interesting, and liked the story. Granted didn't get the full picture because never got around to play Destiny 1, but could still understand what was going on. Was actually a lot of fun playing through the base three stories. Never got to play the DLC stories before the vault happened. What's the vault? It's where Bungie hid more than half of our current arc's story. What happened is Bungie was spooked by how big the game was getting in download size, they wanted to do other content in Destiny 2, and they wanted to ease up on their servers. Thus began the content vault of doom (dramatic I know, I'm sorry).
Post vault a lot of things changed, from game systems to gun play, many things got changed over the years.

Let's talk about the good;
The game play, when I last played it, felt super crisp. The gun play feels powerful, some guns just feel right. From the really well designed sounds to the kick that usually feels nice. Guns, from what did get to try, feel really amazing!
Abilities can vary on how well they do based on your build. Builds feel a lot different than they did prevault era. Imagine some didn't enjoy the change, but it felt pretty alright. Kinda sad to see loosing the cool cinematic way of unlocking new trees, but Bungie wanted to streamline a lot of systems. Some trees did feel a little overbearing at times, like the heavy cc, but build diversity felt pretty good.
Never got around to try it, but from what friends told and heard around from others the crafting system for weapons is pretty good. Being able to get rolls that are what you want on a weapon I imagine is super helpful and good for build diversity, take with a grain of salt as never got to try it, but if it was done right then props to Bungie!

Now let's talk about the bad!
First and foremost I've always had admiration for Bungie, they made a lot of the games grew up playing. Seeing what Destiny 2 switched into kind of makes me sad at times. Destiny 2 used to feel like a decent rpg with pretty good gunplay, but post vault era the rpg elements kind of faded away. If you are a new player who actually wants to get into the story, then I'm sorry little one you are a few years late to experience the story. The only way you can see the gameplay without reading through paragraphs of story, is to watch it on some media site. There are a couple of good content creators who have done recaps for the story and explain the story super well, but still say it's really not the same as actually playing it and interacting with the story, but to each their own! If you don't really care about the story and want to have fun with only the gameplay alone, then imagine most of my points won't sink in really. Really do hope they one day re add the base story, they don't need to re add all of the planets only the nodes to play the stories, so that anyone can go through the full saga of the light and darkness arc.
Moving on another big issue with the game is the heavy money sink if you want to play anything beyond the iceberg of content that you get. There are rotational dungeons/raids that cycle every so often, or they did when last played, and if you don't own the DLC where that dungeon comes from then that's tough buddy no playing for you. Now there are some free ones, but there are a lot more that you need to pay for. Granted know there are sales and keys to definitely lower the price significantly, but still it's pretty darn expensive to get into.
Next issue is the monetization is very predatory, granted do understand this is now a free to play game, but still. Looking at the pricing for a lot of the DLC's and it really stacks up, also also please make sure to read what you are buying as with some of the DLC's you may still need to buy a dungeon key to access some of the DLC's content and or some of the content you bought may be in the content vault! Another big issue with the monetization Bungie chose is that it can be pretty fomo heavy! If you don't know what fomo it's the fear of missing out on any kind of content because it's time limited, which includes gameplay, story, and gear.
Another issue which isn't too bad last played it is class balance can be funky at times. Know said build diversity is good, but every now and then some classes/ subclasses felt highly oppressive. Hopefully they toned that down some, but who knows.
Something else worth mentioning here is that the intro/tutorial, the one from the post vault time, feels really bad. It starts okay, but then is really not pleasant! It's well known to be bad. It kind of throws you into a weird place, then throws the newest cutscene from the most recent dlc at the player, which for most new players would be highly confusing.

Overall, Destiny 2 doesn't feel the same anymore. It's still got the crispy gameplay, but it threw away it's years of story and continued to tell that story without too much context for anyone who doesn't know what's going on. Bungie made very predatory monetization systems with fomo which never feels good as a consumer. If Bungie ever re-releases at least the base stories and vaulted DLC stories then this review would be a neutral review! We shall see what Bungie does in the future, apologies to write this and apologies if any of it is poorly written and is weird! Hope y'all have a kind day and night!

Don't get me wrong I love this game and I wish I wish i could recommend this game, it one i really enjoy playing. The characters, combat, weapon designs so on. But the fact that a huge amount of content has been deleted, that is not returner or beginner friendly just kills it for me. If you miss a season you miss a lot of story, returning to the game after shadowkeep i had no idea what was going on because i hadn't done the seasons.

To much is lost and it makes the story difficult to follow, so that with the loss of the old campaigns and stories just stops me from ever recommend this to anyone.