As someone with over 1500 hours played, I wanted to write an honest review of Destiny 2 now that it’s gone free to play on Steam. This review is intended for people who have never played Destiny but are curious, people who never heard of Destiny and are intrigued, and people who played Destiny 1 or 2 at some point in the series’ life-cycle but haven’t returned to in more than a year and are wondering if it’s worth the time.

The short answer is “Yes.”

The free to play content offered by New Light is more than enough to justify the download, and you have nothing to lose but a little bandwidth and time. If you’re curious, if you’re looking for something new with zero-cost admission, if you tried Destiny at some point and liked it, loved it, thought it was boring, thought it was bad, thought it showed promise it didn’t live up to Destiny 2, in its current state, is absolutely worth the download.

I originally played Destiny 1 on the PS4, pulled in by my curiosity and a deal on the soon-to-be-released Taken King expansion. So this was far enough into Destiny 1's life-cycle that I had a decent amount of content to explore before TKK kicked off the first big paradigm shift for the game. I could tell the launch content was rough, and completely understand why anyone who grabbed the game at launch would be terribly unimpressed. However, the core mechanics of the game were great, the idea of the game was great, and there was a lot to like as I made my way through the expansions.

The changes Taken King made to the game, and the content it added, really won me over, however, and I ended up sinking about 160 hours into the game before I moved on. However, I didn’t get into raiding or really play with any focus - just poked at it with a friend for a few months until we lost interest. I wouldn’t have called myself a Destiny fan, but I enjoyed the game, and was definitely on-board for any sequel that would eventually come.

Flash forward to Destiny 2, and I was pretty excited going into it. I pre-ordered a copy and basically haven’t played much else since the game was released going on three years ago. As a 36 year old who’s gaming habits have drastically changed over the past decade, Destiny has become not just the only game I play, but basically my own form of leisure, chillin’ at home activity.

Destiny 2 is a game that scales with you. Want to play an hour a day? Want to play one night a week? Every night? All day, every day? Want to skip whole months or years and jump back in? Go for it! The game is designed to reward every type of play, every type of time investment, every level of dedication, from the most casual to the most completion-obsessed, and Bungie has perfected their approach over years of trial and error.

Destiny 2 sort of hovers around lifestyle game/game as service because of the “live” nature of it and the cyclical nature of it, but it’s very low pressure. Never have I felt like I’ve HAD to play, but I always have a reason why I WANT to. But because of the way the game is structured, I can easily fit it around my very busy schedule. 5 minutes here, 2 hours there, a night off here, 30 minutes before work there - I can pick away with whatever time I have and walk away with a sense of accomplishment in a way other games just don’t do for me. It's the perfect game to play in the background while doing work or other things. I can play Destiny while writing, listening to audio books, albums, watching TV - it really allows me to maximize my time.

Once you get into the rhythm of Destiny - the game flow, the cyclical nature, the daily/weekly/monthly routine, it's easy for the game to just become a regular part of your life. For this reason, Destiny 2 has filled the gaps where other games or movies or TV would have. When I’m home, and I’m done my ♥♥♥♥ for the day, and I wanna kick back and relax - I put on Destiny and shoot some ♥♥♥♥. While some activities require a high degree of communication, focus, or commitment (raids, for example), and I am in a clan, the vast majority of gameplay is just north of mindlessly shooting endless aliens, robots, and space ghosts with stupid cool guns while looking sexy af. You can play most things solo, or without communication, so typically I just zone out and enjoy the pretty colors and the dancing.

Sure, the Destiny universe has rich lore and RPG mechanics to obsess over if you want, and sure - you can get serious about raiding or Comp PvP. When I have the time I actually enjoy Destiny's raids, or coordinating with others in activities like Heroic Menagerie or Iron Banner, the core gameplay experience boils down to shooting stuff over and over and over, getting powerful gear, and platform jumping. And while this may sound like it can only take you so far, after almost 2000 hours spread across two games, the loot never stops being worth it, and the platform jumping never stops being terrifying.

Yeah - be prepared to do a lot of platforming. Often stupid-difficult platforming. It's, like, Bungie's favorite thing to drive you bananas with. It’s never easy, you’ll never love it, but you will appreciate Bungie’s knack for complex puzzles, deeply hidden secrets, and ridiculously obtuse exploration. Even if don't, you'll typically find the rewards well worth the effort, as Destiny is all about the guns and the guns you get from balls-hard challenges are almost always worth it. And that's because the shooting in Destiny just feels so freakin' good!

The core of Destiny's experience is the gunplay, and the gunplay is incredible. If there is one thing Bungie knows how to do, its make firing crazy sci-fi weapons at aliens feel good. And sound great. And look cool. Have interesting perks and abilities, back stories, and names. You'll get emotionally attached to your guns, excited to find your next exotic, hyped to try a new build. You'll find the things you really love doing and do the hell out of them because when Destiny is fun, Destiny is extremely fun. It's taken years, but Destiny has finally become the a very friendly, MMO flavored Halo RPG it was intended to be.

The problem, however, is a lot of people formed their opinion of the game years ago. Destiny is always a work in progress, it’s always being developed and developing into something slightly more, slightly better, than it currently is. You’re playing a live game, and there are pros and cons with that you just have to accept, but right now the game is really great and now is the best time to give it a try.

If you ever played the game before but haven’t in a while - give it another shot. It’s the same game you remembered, but the best possible version of that game. If there was a problem you had with the game? A criticism? A suggestion? There’s a pretty good chance it’s been fixed by now. Meanwhile, they keep doubling down on all the things that worked - the power fantasy, the customization, the over-the-top battles, the grandeur, the mystery, the exploration, the super dope ass guns, the super sexy ass armor!

If you never played Destiny - give it a shot. You have nothing to lose but some time. You owe it to yourself to see what you think. If you ever played Halo and thought “I want this but with other people all the time and a ton of weapons classes and, like, endlessly cool guns and customizable armor, but also with superpowers...”, it really is the game for you. If you’re a slut for looking cool as ♥♥♥♥, Destiny is for you. If you need to always do something different to be engaged, Destiny is for you. If you want a game that can expand or contract to fit whatever amounts of time you have to give it, Destiny is for you. If you want a game you don’t have to think too much to play, but also could nerd out on mechanics and min-max forever, Destiny is for you. Give it a try. You have nothing to lose.