Author: Jamie Moorcroft-Sharp

The Mysterious Darkness in Destiny 2 Concept Art

This piece of concept art was originally used in a presentation at which developers discusses the original Destiny. However, it’s also Destiny 2 concept art for the core reason that it shows The Darkness, an enemy that isn’t directly mentioned in in Destiny 2 but is still the main reason for the existence of Guardians.

When The Darkness arrived at Earth it was to attack and take the power of the Traveller. In response to this massive threat, one it clearly didn’t believe it could defend against, the Traveller unleashed Ghosts. These Little Lights went off and revived fallen soldiers from around the system and brought them back with the power of the Traveller, Light. Now Guardians fight against the forces of The Darkness.

When you take a moment to consider it, the Traveller is the force of Light, and The Darkness is the opposite. The army of the Traveller is us Guardians, while the antagonist races of Vex, Cabal, Fallen, and Taken make up the army of The Darkness. This war is pretty easy to understand, but in Destiny 2 Bungie has chosen to remove the overarching villain that is The Darkness in order to give us a clearer enemy to fight.

Just what was the original intention for the Darkness then? Judging from this image it was a massive force that could easily take on the defences of Earth, which probably led to the destruction of most of the War Minds. As The Darkness fought against the War Minds and other defences of Earth, as well as whatever help the Traveller offered, many people left Earth and fled to the edge of the Solar System. Sadly they all met a gruesome end out there as more forces of The Darkness met them and mercilessly destroyed them, leaving a huge graveyard of ships. I often wonder what force of The Darkness laid in waiting out here, obviously aware that people would run from their attack.

Looking at this concept art I feel a little disheartened that there isn’t more lore about The Darkness in Destiny 2, but bungie are aways working and could well add lore later on. I understand the need for a focussed enemy I can see and comprehend, but the idea of some sort of undying race unrelentingly pursuing the Traveller until it got to Earth far too epic to ignore. Maybe The Darkness isn’t even organic, it could be the machines of a long dead species set in motion millennia ago to bring back the Traveller, but what happened at the point they found the Traveller?

Image Source: Mashable

Destiny 2’s Raid In Concept Art

Fans of Destiny 2 think they’ve uncovered the location of Destiny 2’s raid, as well as further details regarding the raid such as how players reach it and where else we’ve seen it in the lead up to Destiny 2 launching.

In the image above, on the left, Luke Smith can be seen as he presented at a Destiny 2 gameplay reveal event. The concept art on his hoodie is said to have some relation to the Raid, and that’s because it appears to link into some other Destiny 2 concept art. As you read on, remember the image of a large object with a small planet-like one above it, seemingly being hunted like prey by the object below.

The Destiny 2 concept art above looks a lot like the image on Luke Smith’s hoodie, so much in fact that it prompted a response from the community enough to go on a hunt for any other evidence that this is indeed the location of the raid. However, this wasn’t all that sparked off the intense investigation into where the Raid takes place.

This concept art might not look so different from the last one you saw, but you’ll notice there’s a ship in this one that makes all the difference. This ship is what has some fans convinced that the object about to be consumed, or the giant catfish ship, are where Guardians will go in order to defeat Gaul and beat the first raid in Destiny 2.

I recently wrote about what this ship could be based on other Destiny 2 concept art. I thought that the Vex could be consuming planets in order to create more of their species, resulting in those planets being turned into machines or metal skeletons formed of the waste products created by the Vex. I then thought that these planets would be consumed by this huge ship in order to turn them back into their base elements, and pump them out into space in order for the naturally forming clouds of dust to form new systems.

While I think that theory is still valid, I think there must be something more to it in order for it to be the first raid in Destiny 2. Gaul is the core bad guy in Destiny 2, as Oryx was in The Taken King, leading me to believe he will be the final boss of Destiny 2’s raid.

Gaul is a guy who thinks no one else is better than him, that’s why he’s taken the Traveller from Earth. The Cabal also have a problem with the Vex, that much is evident from the way they constantly fight each other. I think that Gaul is taking his fight to the Vex in an effort to gain control of their power over time. A Cabal army that can time travel would result in something terrible, a force powerful enough to wipe out a race before they begin and take everything they want without needing to really work for it.

How do you feel about a Vex/Gaul variant?

Image Source: Imgur

The Incredible Interior Of Nessus In Destiny 2 Concept Art

Nessus is a world outside of our own Solar System, and in Destiny 2 concept art we can see a lot of what the planet has to offer. Nessus is said to be located in the Cabal home system, though it looks like the Vex have been doing their thing on the planet for quite some time. It’s not confirmed that Nessus is the Cabal homeworld, but the fact that the Vex are there is enough to show us why the Cabal and the Vex don’t get on.

the above concept art shows Nessus in a light we’re not used to, it’s beautiful, lush, and green. When you think of the Cabal you think of a world covered in militarised cities and factories producing weapons of all kinds. Again, Nessus is not said to be the Cabal homeworld so while I wasn’t expecting something like that, I definitely wasn’t expecting a world with lush greenery similar to Earth. However, if the Cabal are aware of the Traveller then they must have seen influence from its Light before, meaning Nessus may once have been a world blessed by the Traveller’s Light, which would make sense given that the Vex are now mining it for everything it’s worth.

This piece of concept art gives us a better idea of what Nessus is like. As you fly over the world you can see large polygonal shapes missing from the surface, but these are actually holes leading deeper into the planet. What has happened with Nessus is an almost complete transformation by the Vex into a sort of Vex planet. In the Inverted Spire Strike we delve deep into the planet’s core and see the horrible machines kept there, as well as a lot of Vex Milk. I think Nessus shows us what the Vex aim to do with pretty much every planet they encounter, turn it into a Vex machine that they can then use for furthering their presence in the universe.

Now this image above is a bit of a stretch but hear me out. What if the object being swallowed by the colossal ship above is one that has been converted by the Vex? I’m not super familiar with what the process of converting a planet as the Vex is, but I imagine that a race of machines would like to create more machines and spread everywhere. If you think about the Vex as bacteria, then it stands to reason that with everything they build by consuming the world they must be creating new elements through various processes. What if this huge ship then takes what is left of a planet after the Vex are done with it and processes it into dust, or basic elements in space? Everything that exists in the universe was once base elements floating around in space, which then came together thanks to gravity to form the systems we have today. There are still huge pillars of this dust and collection of elements travelling through the universe today, but what if all that is being created by the Vex as part of their lifecycle? I know all of this is pretty far-fetched, but we know the Vex worship some unholy stuff, so I think that this is all a definite possibility.

Image Source: GameRant

Destiny 2 Traveller Wallpaper

There has been some incredible new Destiny 2 wallpaper released on the cover of Edge magazine, and I think it says a lot about what’s to come in the title.

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The Traveller has always been a source of Light, a sort of power that inhabits all Guardians through their Ghost. Each Ghost was created by the Traveller when the Darkness came to Earth, the forces that wanted to take the Traveller’s Light for their own. These forces ultimately destroyed the Traveller, at least temporarily, but in a last ditch effort to save Earth it birthed Ghosts, millions of them. These ‘little lights’ moved on to bring back Humans, Exos, and Awoken from the dead, all of whom are now defenders of the Light acting on behalf of the Traveller to continue to defend against the Darkness.

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What these Traveller wallpapers show us is a very different picture of what we’re used to. The Traveller is normally bathed in Light and completely white, with a few scuff marks from the attack on it. These images portray a Traveller that’s being consumed by the Darkness, something that’s always been feared but never realised until now.

The Red Legion is here to take the Light of the Traveller for Gaul, a Cabal general who believes he is the only one worthy of the Traveller’s power. However, the way he’s taking the being’s power appears to be killing, or at least harming, it.

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In Destiny 2 Guardians must find the Vanguard, now split up around the system as they come to grips with the fact that their power is gone, and restore Light by saving the Traveller from its captors. That’s going to be made all the more urgent by the fact that the Traveller looks like it’s being slowly eaten alive by a giant energy field generator.

What I’m interested in most is how Gaul is taking the power of the Traveller and using it for himself. The thing with Light is that it has been given to Humanity willingly, but of course if it can be given willingly it follows that it should be possible to take it by force. Gaul is the leader if a dangerous faction of the Cabal, a race who are bred and live for war. In the moment the Red Legion destroyed the Tower and took the Traveller they assumed they’d destroyed the Guardians, but they’re going to realise soon that it’s harder to kill a Guardian than that. No one has confirmed whether the slow consummation of the Traveller is real or figurative at this point, but I hope it is so we can see how the Guardians reverse it.

Image Source: Reddit

Destiny 2 Guardian Wallpaper

We’re checking out some Destiny 2 wallpapers here, admiring them and sharing them with you to enjoy. The focus in this article is on Guardians specifically, whether it’s their class, style, or race, we love it all. The thing about Guardians is that they represent our personal style and choices within the Destiny universe, and the fact that we can do so much with them makes them all the more interesting.

The above wallpaper has the three core classes from both Destiny and Destiny 2, from left to right Warlock, Hunter, Sentinel. These guys are at the core of your Destiny experience, but you need to get used to them right away because otherwise you’ll be having a hard time at every point in the social spaces and cutscenes. But choosing the main Class alone doesn’t determine what kind of experience you have in Destiny 2, it’s all about the other abilities found in Subclasses.

The wallpaper above is for the new Hunter class, the Arcstrider. As an Arcstrider you can do quite a lot with that staff, though it mainly revolves around ripping enemies apart. This Subclass, as well as most of the other Hunter Subclasses, are focused around moving quickly around the battlefield and supporting your friends and whatever class they chose.

This Titan Striker wallpaper is pretty awesome. The Striker is basically Captain America, allowing you to throw that shield around at any enemies you can see, and it’ll bounce off of surfaces to get to those out of the way enemies if you really need it to. This guy is about getting out there, in the middle of the fight and protecting others from anything too dangerous that their puny bodies might not be able to handle.

This is the Dawnblade, the new Subclass for Warlocks. This class is about being a beacon of light in the battle that everyone can rally to. When you’re powering forward with this you know you’re going to be the one everybody’s looking at, and that’s right where you want to be with  flaming sword at your side and giant fiery wings behind you.

The Epic Landscapes of Titan in Destiny 2 Concept Art

Destiny 2 is taking players to some pretty awesome places around our solar system, and outside of it, but I’m not sure we’ve managed to see the full scale of what’s on offer in said planets. The concept artists at Bungie must have had dozens of ideas about where they wanted to take fans out there, but even the few places they’ve chosen have been given a Destiny makeover to change them into something that expands the universe of the games, and doesn’t simply add some extra planets.

Titan is a great example of a planet, well moon technically, that Bunige have taken and and given their own spin in order to expand the universe of Destiny, as well as humanity. This moon of Saturn has an atmosphere that has kept its surface an unknown entity for some time, but thanks to images from the Cassini mission we know that the surface is mostly rock and ice water with lakes of liquid hydrocarbons. This basically equates to an incredibly cold place where it’s possible for elements that exist as gasses on Earth to exist as liquids. Not only this but there are lakes as large as seas at the poles, and this is where humanity has made a foothold on one of the coldest places in our solar system.

Here we can see ships, as in boats, that have become frozen in Titan’s icy surface. This would seem to indicate that at one point humanity managed to make Titan warm enough for this ice to melt, making it possible to sail across those seas. However, clearly when the Darkness arrived in our system it reversed this process. What exactly was going on here to make the ice melt? Whatever process it was it has now been stopped, leaving the moon in a permanent state of destruction, a living memory of the time the Darkness arrived.

In this piece of concept art we can see what looks like one of the poles of Titan. There the seas are constant, so it’s possible that the sight here is still there in Destiny 2. What the massive base is I can’t say, but it looks like a kind of port, maybe where a number of resources from around the moon are being brought to before off-world transport. I’m really interested in what was going on with this moon during the Golden Age, and I hope that the lore in Destiny 2 explains more of what this awesome concept art shows.

Image Source: Reddit

Don’t Worry About DLC For Destiny 2

With the console version of Destiny 2 out in under a month Activision Blizzard have been speaking out about the DLC and expansion situation with the Destiny series. We all know that Destiny had it’s issues when it comes to DLC. Nothing was out as soon as it should have been, and when DLC did finally hit the game it was never as good as we needed it to be.

With Destiny 2 the developers are turning over a new leaf. DLC and expansions have been carefully thought about and planned for the new title, because they’re now seen as being as important as the game itself. There have already been a lot of positive signs about Destiny 2, and Activision Blizzard have a tremendous amount of confidence in the game.

Destiny 2 has been made to appeal to a wider audience, both in the changes made between the original and sequel, as well as fact that the game is coming to one of the largest gaming sectors out there, the PC crowd. In order to maintain it’s appeal the game needs to do what all the most popular games are doing at the moment, provide constant support and updates.

Destiny 1 got updated every week, pretty much, and even though it wasn’t game changing or groundbreaking it was something you could feel as a player. The Crucible was changing almost constantly, and that’s a good thing because it keeps the competitive edge alive enough to make the multiplayer the most popular activity in the game, at least for some players.

PLAYERUNKNOWN’S BATTLEGROUNDS is updated every month, with new content in the form of gear and weapons dropping all the time. Occasionally the maps will be updated with new vehicles or altered areas to keep the game interesting for players. By comparison, Destiny 1 was simply being patched every week with a slight tweak in order to keep players from complaining about one gun or the other being the best according to stats.

Destiny 2 is going to be different. Not only are there two sizeable content drops planned for the game, one of which has something to do with Rasputin and the other with Trials of Osiris, there’s going to be far more support incoming.

We know that the live events team has been expanded and is already capable of working alongside the rest of the team in order to provide some great limited time events. Hopefully we’ll be seeing updates in Destiny 2 that are more akin to those seen in games such as Dying Light, with areas of planets being updated with new enemies and challenges every month or so.

The power of small free updates has changed games like Dying Light, keeping their fanbase alive in a game that doesn’t truly stand up to some of the releases we’ve had since. However, players keep coming back to it because it’s new, and it’s giving them a reason to explore a game they know inside out apart from this little new addition.

Image Source: ScreenRant

Destiny 2 PC Beta Date And Requirements Confirmed

Bungie has finally revealed the point at which PC players looking forward to playing Destiny 2 will be able to get their hands on the beta, just as Xbox One and Playstation 4 players did recently, and really go to down ripping the hell out of the servers and general enemies occupying the game. However, Bungie recommends that you have a pretty beefy machine if you’re hoping to play the Destiny 2 beta, so steel yourself for what might be a large portion of your pay packet disappearing to the local computer shop.

First up let’s talk about the good news. PC players will be jumping into the Destiny 2 beta around the time of the weekly update, which occurs every Tuesday at 10AM BST. The PC beta will go live on August 28th for all those who have pre-ordered the game. Again I will stress that you take the time to check where your code is coming from, because it might be down to you to pick it up from the Bungie website or something. The beta will go live for the rest of you PC mortals on August 29th, ending on August 31st. The official launch date for the game on PC has also, apparently, been confirmed as October 24th.

Now let’s talk PC specifications. when it comes to processors Bungie say that you should have at least an Intel core i5-2400 or AMD Ryzen R5 1600X. For GPUs it’s recommended that you have an Nvidia GTX 970 or AMD Radeon R9 390. Bungie also say you need at least 8GB or RAM.

If you’ve already got a bit of a beast of a PC then Bungie has some recommendations for upgrading that beast as well. If you’re upgrading then go for an Intel-Core i5-7400 CPU and an Nvidia GTX 1060 6GB GPU. However, if you fancy running Destiny 2 like Bungie does at all of their events, then you need an Nvidia GTX 1080Ti 11GB  GPU and Intel i7-7700k processor.

Bungie has released a full list of recommended specs which are below, but they do stress that by the time the game launches these may well have changed. So as someone who doesn’t game on PC, I’m going to advise you to wait until the game comes out and then look at modifying your PC to play it. I say this because in my head Destiny 2 is going to set the bar for how great games can look for at least a little way into the future, so I would build a PC that plays it to the max in order to get the most out of all future PC titles.

Recommended CPU

  • Intel – Core i5-2400
  • AMD – Ryzen R5 1600X

Recommended GPUs

  • Nvidia – GeForce GTX 970
  • AMD – Radeon R9 390

Recommended RAM

  • 8GB

Minimum CPU

  • Intel – Core i3-3250
  • AMD – FX-4350

Minimum GPU

  • Nvidia – GeForce GTX 660 2GB
  • AMD – Radeon HD 7850 2GB

Minimum RAM

  • 6GB

Recommended CPU Upgrading

  • CPU – Intel Core i5-7400
  • GPU – Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 6GB

Minimum CPU Upgrading

  • CPU – Intel Pentium G4560
  • GPU – Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 2GB

Image Source: GameTransfers

From The Beta – How Strikes Feel Different

In the Destiny 2 beta I got a chance to play the single strike that Bungie made available for us, The Inverted Spire. The strike itself was pretty great, but it felt totally different to any other Strike from Destiny, so I want to talk about how different strikes feel in Destiny 2.

In the original Destiny we had Strikes that took us from point A to point B, and then revealed a boss that needed an insane amount of bullets putting into it before it finally died and rewarded us with loot. After a couple of expansions the Strikes have changed, giving us more to do than simply move around and kill stuff, tasking us with taking down shields and shutting downs systems in order to access new areas. This key difference made Strikes more interesting and far easier to play one after the other if you needed to grind for some new gear.

The Inverted Spire feels like an incredible Strike, but that’s just because it’s so different. Firstly the Strike is so much more open than anything in Destiny. The map gives you a huge chunk of Nessus to run around and explore in, meaning players were even able to uncover areas believed to be Lost Sectors, and what might be a secret unlocked by completing a number of tasks in a certain order. The Strike also makes the acts of the Vex and Cabal feel much more real, with giant drills actively ripping the planet apart around you, and small caves opening up into huge city-like structures.

The boss of the new Strike also feels completely different to any other Strike boss before it. The boss arena changes twice, first to an area where the boss has elemental control over sections at a time, and then to a much smaller area around which there is damage causing Vex Milk. After a point the boss then starts to throw in new ads, and even charges you on the platform right at the end. This constantly changing battle makes the boss far more interesting, and basically an entire section of the Strike in its own right.

Finally, the Strike respawn rates are greatly increased. As I was running around it became apparent that if I didn’t revive my mates at the time then they’d take ages to respawn, and then take ages to reach me and the other person who were struggling up ahead with all the enemies. The Strikes in Destiny 2 feel like they’re making it easier if you stick together as a team, rather than go it alone.

Image Source: VG247

Coldheart Exotic Trace Rifle Reveals A New Weapon Type

Now that Coldheart has been revealed as pre-order bonus for Destiny 2, we need to talk about what it might tell us, and what it definitely tells us, about the game proper. the thing I must start with is that Coldheart is an exotic weapon that is a timed exclusive for those who pre-order the game. Depending on where you pre-ordered the game you might not actually get the weapon, so if you’re very bothered I recommend you go and check if you will be receiving it at launch or not now.

Coldheart said two very big things to me when I saw it for the first time. Initially I thought we had a new element type, but I’m not so certain about that so we’ll need to explore it deeper. Second, we now definitely know about an entirely new type of weapon that we’ll be blasting the crap out of each other with, the Trace Rifle.

A Trace rifle seems to be a type of weapon that shoots a continuous blast of energy at an enemy. From the clips we’ve seen it seems as though you’ll be battling with recoil as it fires in a similar way to how you do when you fire a Machine Gun. I think the key element of the name is Rifle, meaning it will be similar to a Scout, Sniper, Pulse, and Fusion Rifle which all have scopes and can be aimed over medium to long distances.

The advantage of firing what is effectively a laser beam over a long distance means you can deal loads of damage in a short burst. The disadvantage is that you give away your position massively, which you wouldn’t do with a Sniper Rifle or other Kinetic Rifle because the bullet passes mostly unnoticed. However, I feel like the trade off here is acceptable given that the damage you’ll be dealing is more than likely akin to the amount you deal when blasting someone full in the face with a Fusion Rifle, deadly.

What really gets me about Coldheart is its name. Cold indicates a new kind of element, but we know from the promotional material shown so far that this weapon uses Arc damage. If something has cold at its heart, it’s icy right? I think Bungie is hiding a spoiler in plain sight with this one. Yes okay the weapon will be using Arc damage when we receive it, but there’s nothing to say it can’t use multiple elements.

If you played the beta for Destiny 2 then you’ll know that the element of a weapon is set by an elemental damage modification for it. This means you can switch out any element into a weapon, which is a bonus considering each weapon now only comes with a single set of unique perks.

I’m saying that Bungie is holding back on the announcement of an ice element here. I mean we have three core elements, and there’s a Subclass for each, so why shouldn’t there be an entirely new element that also features in the new Subclass list? Subsequently meaning we have a new elemental weapon mod.

Let me know what you think.

Image Source: GameRant