Tag: News

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

How Destiny 2 Blends Story, Side Missions, And Public Events

Destiny 2 is making a lot of big changes, and one of those changes is story. The original game had very little story, and what was there was incoherent and disjonted. It’s okay to admit it, we all love Destiny but it definitely had some weak points to it, but that’s all been worked on in Destiny 2.

The core of Destiny 2’s story is all about the lost Light from the Traveller, that much we know and we’re not going to get anymore until the game comes out unfortunately. What we do know is that Bungie is expanding the story through pieces of the game that weren’t important in the slightest in the first game. Public Events.

Well, when I say Public Events, I mean all of the missions and gameplay you get when patrolling a planet, because it’s been massively built upon to offer so much more than you’re thinking it does. One thing that Bungie has left out so far is that a portion of the game’s side missions and other story content is locked until you finish the main story of the game. Not only does this mean that there’s still fresh content once we finish everything the game has to offer at it’s core, it means we’re going to be busy for far longer than we were in Destiny.

Lost Sectors are a side activity we know about already. What they consist of is loot, guarded by a large enemy. But how you find these areas is far less clear than how you do most other things in Destiny 2. When you’re running around up and down the main paths on a planet you’ll come across the symbol for Lost Sectors. When you see this symbol, you’ll need to then spend a while looking for the entrance, which could be as innocent as a small gap near the floor, the likes of which we’ve only seen on the Dreadnought. Lost Sectors will tell the story of what lies hidden on each planet, something about the history of the area, and maybe even the antagonist races.

Adventures are another type of side mission, one which will tell a self contained story within the Destiny universe. The aim of these missions is to expand the lore of Destiny and to the point where you know stuff you never knew was important. I’m really excited about these because they’re going to tell stories that are important outside of the scope of the main story of the Traveller. These are the things I want to know about the Destiny universe, and I hope you want to know them too.

Finally, the weekly events such as the Nightfall are being improved upon with Flashpoints. Every week there will be a new Flshpoint, which is a planet’s Patrol mission. Here Guardians will need to complete a certain number of Public Events, or type of Event, depending on what the Flashpoint requires in order to earn great rewards. Cayde-6 will be selling special Treasure Maps that you can buy to find new loot and activities on the Flashpoint planet of the week. Not only all this, but certain Public Events on the Flashpoint each week have the potential to unlock a secret boss, but only if you complete them according to the restriction such as time, or beat them after activating the Heroic variant.

All this is how Destiny 2 is blending its world into the story way more than the original, and it’s something worth celebrating.

Image Source: DestinyWiki

GuardianCon Raises $1.2 Million For Charity

A fan-created convention for Destiny, GuardianCon, has raised $1.2 million for St Jude Children’s Hospital in the week leading up to the event. GuardianCon officially takes place over the course of today and tomorrow, but thanks to a group of streamers working around the clock to keep the event’s Twitch channel filled with constantly entertaining Destiny streams, it’s already making a difference.

GuardianCon began as a meetup between a group of streamers who all enjoyed Destiny. Now the event is somewhere that players from all around the world can come to in order to play with other Guardians and compete in intensive PVP tournaments.

The highlights of the Twitch stream were when Mr.Fruit came on and the total raised hit $1 million, and when King Gathalion was streaming and the numbers hit $1.2 million. The total is still rising as the event continues, though everyone’s expectations have already been blown out of the water by the money raised so far.

There are very few gaming events that can raise a substantial amount of money for charity and make a real difference. Just last Christmas the Yogscast managed to raise more than $2 million for charity with their Christmas streams that they put on every year. Similarly, Games Done Quick, and Summer Games Done Quick, events that showcase the speedrunning community, raise even more for charity twice a year, making a real difference in the community and to people’s lives.

With Destiny 2 just around the corner GuardianCon won’t be slowing down anytime soon. In fact the even is surely going to get bigger and bigger with the inclusion of streamers who play Destiny 2, and those who continue to play the original game for as long as Bungie support it.

It would be interesting if Bungie makes more of an effort to be involved in GuardianCon in the future. It would make sense because the event only serves to provide more advertising for their game, and positive advertising at that. When it comes to charity events maybe Bungie could put on special playlists in-game that accumulate points which relate to money Bungie will donate to charity.

Image Source: Twitter

Playstation Exclusive Exotic Borealis

Among the exclusive content coming to Playstation 4 Guardians in Destiny 2 is an exclusive Strike, armour set for each class, PVP map, and of course this little weapon called Borealis.

Borealis is an exotic Sniper Rifle that’s only on Playstation 4 for a limited time, so grinding for it is recommended so you can gloat for the maximum amount of time possible. But what’s so exotic about this Sniper Rifle? And what could it help you do if you were to head out and use it in activities?

The exotic perk of this weapon, though it isn’t officially defined yet, is that you can swap between Arc, Solar, and Void damage. Not only are you able to swap between the different types of elemental damage, you can do this on the fly. From the trailer it appears as though you can press a button and it will cycle the weapon to the next type of damage, though that isn’t confirmed and could be very clever editing instead.

However you’re able to swap between the damage types it’s just impressive that you can. In Destiny 1 the House of Wolves update added a Fusion Rifle that you could swap out to have the range of a Sniper Rifle, with slightly different charging times, called Queenbreaker’s Bow. This weapon completely changed how you thought about killing enemies, and made it so that you wouldn’t need to swap between a number o weapons.

Can you imagine how useful a Sniper Rifle that can deal all three types of damage will be? The modifiers that are applied to every heroic activity will no longer bother you, as you chop and change your elements to take down the Ultras and deal the most damage possible in any given event, whether that’s a Raid, a Strike, or even just a daily mission. To top it off, you can infuse it to keep up with the highest Light levels and avoid ever needing to leave it behind for something more powerful.

This is just the perk we know about, there could be more. I imagine that Firefly won’t be available on the weapon, purely because that would be incredibly devastating when combined with the element swapping. It feels like it would need a bonus to Agility however, because Sniper Rifles are hard to stop and aim with when you have all kinds of enemies hunting you down fro all directions.

Destiny 2 Release Date and Beta Dates Update

E3 has been on this entire week and there’s been a fair bit of news out of the conference. Most important of all a is information relating to the game’s release date, both on consoles and PC, as well as the Beta release date.

The Destiny 2 Beta has been confirmed as running from July 19th until July 23rd on consoles. Now this beta is only available to those who have pre-ordered the game, so if you haven’t done that it might be worth doing it this month to ensure you get a chance to trial the game before it’s released. If you’re wondering what console to pre-order for then I would say Playstation 4, because the Beta is gong live there on July 18th, giving PS4 players a whole day extra on top of what Xbox One players will get. Sony also have a deal with Activision Blizzard surrounding Destiny 2, meaning Playstation 4 players get exclusive exotics as well as potentially early access to all future content.

For PC players the beta is coming slightly later. Now this is because the full release date of the game for PC has also been delayed, and the game isn’t simply a port of the console version. For anyone looking to get Destiny 2 on PC, pre-order now and you’ll get into the Beta in august.

The release date for Destiny 2 has shifted ever so slightly on both console and PC. Before E3 the release date was September 8th, but the game will now launch for Xbox One and Playstation 4 on September 6th. Now I know this isn’t a massive shift in the grand scheme of things but what it does do is put the game on a release day of Wednesday instead of Friday. The possible reason for this could be that Bungie is now hoping to have Trials of Osiris run that Friday, September 8th, but they don’t want players to be overwhelmed too early on. By releasing the game on the Wednesday they give players plenty of time to gear up a bit before taking on others in the gruelling Trials matches.

For PC the release date has shifted to October 24th. Now this is a Tuesday which is a normal day for games to be released, however it could still be that Bungie wants to run Trials that weekend and don’t want to overwhelm PC players either.

With the PC version releasing a month or so after the console version some may be worried about the state of the Raid. In Destiny Bungie waited a few weeks before unlocking the Raid so players could earn gear and guns to complete it. This time around I think we will see the same situation, but I doubt that Bungie will wait over a month for the PC version to release just to put the Raid out for all players. Unfortunately it looks like PC players will miss out on being the first Raiders in the game.

Destiny Won’t Receive Any More Balance Updates or Design Passes, At Least For Now

In the latest weekly update from Bungie we were told that Destiny won’t be receiving anymore updates in terms of balance, design passes or tweaks for the foreseeable future. The sold focus for Bungie at this point is Destiny 2, which is entirely understandable given that the release date is sneaking up on us fast.

The update did say that once Destiny 2 is out and the studio is has a bit more time on their hands they have a host of new updates for Destiny. These updates are the product of listening to fan feedback and will, according to bungie, make it the game fans are crying out for.

Since release Destiny has been balanced and re-balanced every week, with new bits and pieces being added to the world, taken out, and weapons have been buffed or nerfed depending on what the Crucible meta is. Part of Destiny’s success is the fact that it has been so carefully looked after since it launched, with everything being constantly changes in order to keep the game fair and fun for everyone.

Some memorable changes Bungie has brought to the game are the huge nerfing that Shotguns suffered, which were all people used in the Crucible for a while, the destruction of the loot cave, which is now part of the Age of Triumph record book, and the nerfing of the Vex Mythoclast, which was the only elemental primary weapon for quite some time.

The Destiny 2 beta will launch later this year, giving everyone a chance to try out the game in some small form before it launches. In Destiny the beta consisted of four main story missions, one of which was a Strike for players to enjoy as a group. Destiny 2 is set to be a much larger game, not just in terms of the number of missions but also the amount of activities to do outside of the core story. The beta for Destiny 2 will most likely include the European Deadzone open world, a small number of missions and a Strike, and some additional open world events such as Lost Sectors. The goal of the beta will be to iron out any glaringly obvious bugs that Bungie have missed, so it will be imperative for as many people as possible to play it.

Sunshot, Sweet Business, and Riskrunner – Some of the Exotic Weapons in Destiny 2

Destiny has a whole pile of Exotic weapons for Guardians to gather, horde, and barely use in all of the activities the game has to offer. Destiny 2 will be no different, and now we have the opportunity to check out three of the Exotic weapons coming with Destiny 2. These weapons were class exclusive in the Destiny 2 reveal event but there’s no confirmation as to whether they are specifically class exclusive. The classes mentioned below are the ones that simply held the exotic weapon to give you an idea if they are class exclusive.

Sunshot – Hunter Exotic Hand Cannon

Obviously Hunters get the Hand Cannon, that’s just the class they belong with and you can’t really argue with that. This gun is Solar powered, which should also be obvious given the name. The weapons deals 200 damage, at the moment anyway because we don’t know about the infusion process if there even is one. The weapon also fires 150 rounds per minute, which sounds more like a machine gun but it definitely isn’t, and that fact alone makes it awesome.

The perks for this weapon are Sunburn, which produces explosive rounds that are said to highlight targets, and Sunshot, which makes enemies explode in Solar energy. I can’t really get my head around just how good this is going to be in PVP. Here you have a way to highlight your enemies, and there are explosive rounds going off as standard. Couple that with an explosion every time you kill an enemy, and you’ve got team kills stacking up in your mind already.

Sweet Business – Titan Exotic Auto Rifle

This exotic Auto Rifle sounds like it’s Void powered, but it could as easily just be Kinetic which is just fine. The weapon deals 200 damage and fires 360 rounds per minute, which is pretty phenomenal and worthy of an exotic weapon.

The perks for this weapon are Payday, which increases the hip fire accuracy as well as the total ammunition its magazine, and a Placeholder perk that currently isn’t named, but it boosts the rate of fire and range when you hold down the trigger. Additionally any ammunition that is picked up will be automatically loaded into the magazine.

Riskrunner – Warlock Exotic SMG

This SMG also does 200 damage, but it fires 360 rounds per minute, just under the Auto Rifle Sweet Business which is nothing to be shunned. This weapon seems like it does Arc damage, so it may be that it doesn’t just belong in the Kinetic Weapons slot. As the first exotic SMG we’re getting a look at, this is pretty awesome.

The perks for this gun are Arc Conductor, which increases the weapon’s damage when you take Arc damage, and another unnamed perk which works alongside Ar Conductor, giving bullets a chance to become chain lightning when the other perk is active.

These exotic weapons look pretty great and are a good start to what I’m sure is just an entire mountain of elusive loot to chase after.

New Supers And Abilities In Destiny 2

At the Destiny 2 reveal event we saw quite a lot of screen time from on the new Super abilities from new subclasses. These subclasses were revealed quite a while ago when some Destiny 2 images leaked, showing some characters with sword, shield, and a staff. We know now that these images were actually of these new Super abilities, though they aren’t new subclasses.

The first new Super and subclass is Dawnblade. This is a Solar Super that gives Guardians a huge Solar sword that works mostly like the swords in Destiny. However, this sword also throws flame at enemies when swung in their general direction. The full skill tree for this revamped subclass includes Solar Grenades, Firebolt Grenades, and Fusion Grenades, as well as some other abilities such as healing rift, healing those around you, and Empowering Rift, a wall of Light that increases the power of those inside of it.

The second new Super is for Titans, the Sentinel subclass. The Sentinel is a Void subclass This new subclass turns Guardians into a space version of Captain America. Titans will get a shield that they can use to smash enemies out of the way, defend themselves, or throw at enemies in order to take them down. The shield will bounce off of enemies as it hits them, meaning you could throw it into a group of three and end up taking all of them down if you really wanted to.

The final new subclass is the Arcstrider for Hunters. Of course the Arcstrider is an Arc based subclass, but with the Super it’s so much more than that. The Super gives Hunters a big old Arc staff with which they can smash enemies and do all sorts of awesome attack moves over and around with, taking out enemies with incredible efficiency. There’s an AOE effect that sees you spin the staff around against all enemies, and there’s some kind of attack that sees Hunters come down from a height to deal big damage too.

With new subclasses come new dynamics between fireteams. Of course the ideal fireteam would be one of each major class with complementary subclasses in order to take enemies down in the most efficient way possible. Dawnblades definitely seem like more of a supporting subclass, with abilities that play on helping out allies with healing and empowering. The Arcstrider appears to be more of a close combat specialist, and classically they’ve always trodden the line between supportive and offensive roles in the fireteam. The Sentinel Titan definitely seems like more of an offensive subclass, especially with that shield that can be used for both close and long range combat. However these subclasses play out in the game we now at least know what they are and what elemental power they all use.

What this doesn’t answer is the question over whether there’s a new elemental power in the game, one that Guardians will gain access to as part of the second half of the game’s content. The main element that springs to mind is air, though how this would be represented in Destiny 2 in both weapons and subclasses is a different story altogether.

Activision Blizzard Confirm Steady Stream of Content for Destiny 2

During a conference call that took place after the earnings report meeting for Activision Blizzard, it has been confirmed that Destiny 2 will have a steady stream of content after launch. This confirmation comes as a reiteration to investors who have clearly raised concerns over the sequel, given that a core complaint with the original game was the lack of updates and content after launch.

Activision Blizzard also confirmed that Destiny 2 on PC will have meaningful features that make the game relevant to PC gamers, but was reluctant to reveal further information before the gameplay reveal on May 18th.

This news is welcome after the disaster that was the post-launch content for Destiny in the beginning. The first two expansions, The Dark Below and House of Wolves, added features to the game that many felt should have been there from day one. Thus these expansions will always be seen as the missing puzzle pieces of the original game, that appeared to have been cut out of it when it was finished and held back behind time and money barriers.

Year 2’s expansion was better, The Taken King added much to the game that players had requested, as well as features they didn’t know they wanted. The hunt for Calcified Fragments is one that still consumes Guardians today, and the secrets held by the Dreadnaught are still making many question what certain items are for.

Rise of Iron, the last and latest expansion, added more mystery and a lot more content to the game. Most players are still pursuing the rewards offered by the latest DLC, and many are going through it with a fine tooth comb in order to complete their Record Books for Age of Triumph.

Bungie continues to offer updates, and not just the hot fixes that serve to balance out the current meta of the Crucible. The April update brought more to The Taken King than originally planned, and opened our eyes to the generosity of the developers that we thought were money-grabbing finks. The Dawning showed us yet again just how festive the developers could be, though we were always expecting something thanks to The Festival of the Lost and Crimson Days. Finally we have been given the Age of Triumph.

Age of Triumph is easily the best free update Destiny has ever seen It has given players who weren’t even bothered about finishing Rise of Iron a reason to play again, with records that require players to scour the whole game again more or less. It also encourages the completion of pesky quests that we haven’t quite been bothered to do as of yet.

Anything close to what we’ve seen in the latter half of Destiny’s existence will be more than welcome in Destiny 2, though I suspect a much larger plan is at play. From what we can see so far the two initial expansions are planned to relate to Trials of Osiris, and Rasputin. While Trials of Osiris is a weekly event, Rasputin is simply a mystery. Both of these expansions, it can be argued, will add more than just the content you can see, and that’s why they’re so exciting. Adding more content each week with both the expansions would fit, especially if you’re solving a mystery with Rasputin that requires you to complete a task each week or miss unlocking the next one.

Image source: Engadget

Destiny 2 Poster Leak – What It Tells Us

Recently you may have seen news that a poster for Destiny 2 was leaked. This is true, and as far as anyone can tell it shows the release date of the game as September 8th. This matches up with the release date of the original game which was also launched in early September.

The poster shows the classic fireteam of three Guardians with their guns out, heading into some kind of warzone that appears to be in the Tower! That’s right, and this is where things get interesting.

What we can see behind the Guardians in the poster is Cabal ships flying in, which we all know means the Cabal have not only invaded, but are attacking the Tower. This ties in well with the MegaBloks sets that were leaked a while back, and that alone is a good indication that we’ll be seeing scenarios similar to those in Destiny 2.

If we look at the MegaBloks sets and think about these scenarios we can begin to understand what the gameplay, or at least mission structure, of Destiny 2 will look like. We know that there’s a fight in the Hanger in the Tower, we know Guardians such as Commander Zavala will be leaving the Tower to join the fight out on the planets of our solar system. This potentially means missions will be far more open, with a large sandbox area or set of areas made for each planet, with different missions occurring as you pick them up in each. Having NPCs such as the Vanguard placed on planets around the solar system would also make for easier quest giving.

Bungie has said that Destiny 2 is more open and  very different to the original game, which makes me think it has a more World of Warcraft style world that allows you to travel between areas, which are planets in Destiny 2. In an age where a game like No Man’s Sky can exist, we could be given planet-sized worlds to explore and conquer.

When it comes to Raids, the Nightfall Strike, and other new events that require players to meet up without matchmaking things will be trickier. Currently Destiny sets all players up within an instance together, but this will be hard to achieve in an open world setting without players meeting up outside a designated Raid area for example.

However these finer parts of the game are implemented I’m sure they’ll be great, but right now we should focus on the Tower. In September we may well be able to run around and explore a much vaster Tower area, fighting the Darkness as it rears its ugly head.

Image Source: Kotaku