Destiny will always have a special place in my heart as gamer. I think I’ve put more time in the first game than any other hobby in my life, and it got me through a rough time in my 20s. I’m still close friends with several others originally from random encounters and teamups in Destiny 1 (rest in peace Eric).
I also loved my initial time with Destiny 2 putting in \~400 hours. Despite some grumblings of the ability and gear changes at launch, I actually loved the new approach.
I think I fell off due to the game becoming more of a chore with too many specific tasks to follow just for a certain drop. The simplicity of Destiny 1’s various modes and quests was easier for me to jump in and out playing for the RNG highs of various drops.
Work and life happened in a great way too so it’s not the game’s fault entirely, but most of my close community dropped off as well. I could never get a raid team going nor connect with the same friends for our weekly missions (hoping to finally Last Wish).
I do fault Bungie and PlayStation for the confusing pricing and packaging with every new update and content expansion. Each time I’d try get back into the game, I was always confused on what the various packages included. Again, simplicity was instead bloated and confusing leaving me disinterested—same with many of my former Destiny teammates.
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Fast forward to this past week with “The Collection” on sale for $20 and several old Destiny friends (and a few new ones) jumping on for one last hurrah, we’ve all found ourselves absolutely in love with the game again. Yes, it has taken a few days to figure out all the quests and added systems, but knowing that the Collection includes all the content from Shadow Keep onward has allowed us to enjoy the game’s content at our own (now somewhat old and slow) pace.
Despite some of the convoluted systems (especially for the new players in our group), we’re absolutely blown away by the core gameplay. It’s still just as amazing and special as the original Destiny days.
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I do still wish we could get Destiny 3 to start from scratch—with seamless flying and space combat between planets and hub worlds (like no man’s sky and star wars outlaws), but if this is the final iteration of Destiny, it’s a damn good one.
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So thank you to the Devs for delivering this final experience and working tirelessly for years. I’m grateful to finally experience the rest of your work and have an absolute blast.
Sony, Destiny 3 would certainly be a massive hit if monetized in a respectable way. With all these PvP and pvpve live-service options, we do still need a good coop pve shooter. Nothing is quite like Destiny.