Bungie announced the beta schedule for Destiny 2 for PC and Consoles (PS4 & XBox One). The launch date for Destiny 2 for Consoles is set two days earlier than originally announced: now September 6. However, the Windows 10 PC version of Destiny (via Battle.net Launcher) is set for October 24. You can pre-order it here to get your beta early access code within 2-3 days via email. You can then redeem the code by login into Bungie.net with the Xbox or PS4 login credentials.
If you don’t have an Xbox, but you have a hotmail or outlook email account, that is your login credential. Go to the Redeem Code page and enter the code there. Then you are set. Blizzard Entertainment will flag your Blizzard Launcher once the Destiny 2 Beta starts for PC this late August.
DESTINY 2 BETA
DESTINY 2 LAUNCH
- September 6: PS4 and Xbox One
- October 24: PC
DESTINY 2 TRAILER
DESTINY 2 – 24 MINUTES GAMEPLAY VIDEO: INVERTED SPIRE
First, I wish to note that I have never played the original Destiny game, nor have I watched a gameplay video of the original game. When Blizzard Entertainment and Bungie announced the PC version would be available via Battle.net, that was the first time I ever watched video about Destiny 2 (the trailer).
Someone posted 24 minutes of gameplay, and to be honest, it deflated my interest in the game for the following reasons: It might be just this particular zone, but what I saw in this video shows a Destiny 2 that feels like a high-polygon version of the original Super Mario, leaping from platform to platform. The creature AI doesn’t feel immersive and dynamic. Creatures just shoot at you. I didn’t hear any voice over from creatures attacking you. In World of Warcraft, if a Murloc aggroes me from behind, or flanks me from a blindspot, I know it is a murloc before I turn around to look. Same for a gnoll, or a bear. In Destiny 2, you only know something is attacking you when you hear the pew-pew.
There are no gorgeous landscapes per se. Most of the buildings and structures are square-blocks with some minor skins. Objective areas are small, and when you reach the edge, you look down to an abyss and leap to the next floating block, to leap to the next floating block, until you find a jump-pad to reach the next area, and so on. Plain and simple: BORING!
In contrast, I took a look at the Anthem trailer unveiled at E3, and its landscapes were beautiful. An open world where you can fly and dive in your javelin armor suit. The setback for Anthem is that it won’t come out until Fall 2018, and it is made by Bioware/EA. Some people with experience playing their games have been verbal in some forum discussions. I haven’t played any Bioware game that I can remember, so I can’t vouch for the bad feedback, but I can say I liked the trailer. We’ll have to wait and see.
This Destiny 2 gameplay video, however, crushed any interest I had in playing the game. If anything, it made me love Blizzard games even more knowing how the developers iterate and polish World of Warcraft and Overwatch as beautiful and immersive games that I feel confident I will come back and stay for a long time. Again, maybe the video only shows a sort of Oil Rig, and there are much better locations out there.
Shooter games I have played before and enjoyed: FarCry, Crysis 1, Crysis 2, Half-Life 2, Hitman. I have played other ones I can’t remember now. Destiny 2 is very different to any of those games. In some aspect it feels like Diablo II/Diablo III in that you kill monsters for loot. The Character UI looks like Diablo III and World of Warcraft with equipment slots and weapon slots. The only difference there is that there seems to be at least 9 weapon slots, and you can switch weapons.
Some people might find this game appealing. I will play the PC Beta Test in late August to provide gameplay video.
13 MINUTES GAMEPLAY – THE CRUCIBLE
The second video takes place in The Crucible. Now this location looks much better. Seems to be a small city with lots of buildings. This is a 4v4 PvP map as seen at 00:02:56. A scoreboard shows Team Alpha and Team Bravo. Here might be the bread and butter of Destiny 2 as a lifeline. The gameplay is brutal compared to Half-Life 2: Deathmatch.
