In mid-November 2020, Destiny 2, a player-versus-environment-versus-player game, released its latest expansion Beyond Light, which adds new lore to the ever expanding Destiny 2 universe, while giving players new weapons and gear to collect, making their characters even more powerful. Loyal players and those new to the franchise wonder if it is worth acquiring.

The expansion is full of activities that began on the 10th of October. Players who are interested in purchasing Beyond Light have the choice of spending forty dollars, fifty dollars, or seventy dollars for differing editions of the expansion pack. The real differences among these three price points involve the fact that by paying the seventy dollars the buyer gets access to all the seasons within the expansion. A season lasts about one hundred days, and there are usually three seasons within each expansion. The forty dollar edition just gives the expansion without the seasons, while the fifty dollar edition includes the expansion as well as the first season. 

It is beneficial to purchase the fifty or seventy dollar expansion because during a season, the game developers often release new gear or weapons that are exclusive to those who have access to the season. By buying the season early with a slightly higher price for the expansion, you are setting yourself up to have fun when the next season comes out. 

Destiny 2 stands out from other games, namely those like Call of Duty and Fortnite, because of the difference in how their developers treat their games. Bungie, the company that owns and runs Destiny 2, listens to their community of players when they are upset about glitches or issues, and will prioritize these complaints by going into the game and fixing them. Often with games like Call of Duty and Fortnite, owned by Activision and Epic Games respectively, the insight into how their community of players are feeling is lacking. Many developers also take much longer to fix issues in their games. What Bungie does is keep track of Destiny 2’s glitches by monitoring YouTube videos, Reddit posts, and Tweets that have to do with possible or existing glitches within the game. By building this trust within the community, Bungie has fostered a positive environment for gamers to feel comfortable enough to continue playing Destiny 2.

Other ways that Bungie has improved their community outreach is by having effective community managers on Twitter, who when tweeted at, respond to retweeted criticism or questions. Admittedly, there have been numerous bugs and glitches in Beyond Light due to the giant content vaulting of past expansions. This was done for Beyond Light in order to speed up loading times for the game and to allow for the current and future expansions for Destiny 2 to be put in the game. The result of “vaulting” or removing old content from Destiny 2 was that many patches or updates that had been made in the past, have been removed, leading players to experience these old glitches and issues. 

However, with Bungie’s diligence, staff members have been outlining the problems they plan to fix and the problems that have already been fixed. All of Bungie’s solutions are found on the “This Week at Bungie” post on the Destiny 2 website. There, Bungie developers post changes, updates, and new content to be added to the game every Thursday of every week. This acts as a means of assurance, letting Destiny 2 gamers know that their voices have been heard.

In Destiny 2 there are many different ways to play the game. One of the options at the start of the game is to choose between three kinds of characters, the Titan, the Warlock, and the Hunter. These different characters have their own strengths and weaknesses, which serve their own purposes in different situations. This is why it is often essential to have one of every character type when doing a multiplayer activity. Thankfully, the game allows for the player to make three characters. 

The types of play consist of player-versus-player (PvP) and player-versus-environment (PvE), meaning that the player takes on the game system. Three of Destiny 2’s core game types are Strikes (PvP), Gambit (PvE), and Crucible (PvP). These modes advance the player similarly with reward tiers that scale up from powerful to pinnacle. Powerful and pinnacle rewards are just another way of saying that the more the player completes these activities the higher power level the weapons and armor gained are going to be. 

Along with the actual level of the gear the player earns there are also different rarities to the gear, that being rare, legendary, and exotic. Rares have a blue color to them, and are useful to the new player but annoying to the more powerful player because of their low statistics of effectiveness. Legendaries are colored purple, and typically make up most of what a player is wearing and using. Exotics, the most powerful weapons and armor accessible to players can only be slotted as one piece out of the five pieces of armor. There can also only be one exotic weapon slotted out of the player’s three weapon slots. As a result, it is important for the player to consider which exotics will be the most helpful when slotted and to consider the power levels of the exotics in order for them to be useful in activities that warrant the player to be powerful. 

Power level is a number that is given to a player based on the levels of individual armor pieces and weapons that the player has equipped. The higher the gear the player has the higher their overall power level will be. This leveling system scales up to a certain point and caps out, but eventually when a new season begins, the maximum power level increases. The point of having a power leveling system in the first place is to give players goals of certain power levels to reach in order to have access to particular fun and more rewarding activities. 

One issue with this system is that it can be boring for long time players of Destiny 2 to fall into the same gameplay loop of powering up their character every new season with the same three activities, in order to reach the new maximum power cap. However, for those who have just gotten Destiny 2 for Beyond Light, this system is most likely to be pretty enjoyable. 

The activities mentioned earlier that require higher power levels are group missions called raids, a feature for which Destiny 2 owes its popularity and acclaim. In fact most gamers who take breaks from the game come back to revisit it just for the new raid experience every year. It is designed to be a combative, puzzle oriented, story mission that typically takes up to two hours to complete and requires the attention of every person in the six-man team. Raids are where gamers are put to the test with strong enemies, difficult raid mechanics, and (depending upon where they are in the raid) the raid boss. Raids are fun because they force the player to find teammates, and also to rely on them to complete the mission. This can create friendships among players, allowing for long time raid teams to form. 

One issue with raids is that sometimes there can be toxic players in the Destiny 2 community who treat other players poorly because of bad performance in the raid. However, this is the case with most games, and thankfully there is nothing in the raid that forces players to stick with their teams if others are being toxic. The best part of a raid involves the rewards, especially the final rewards after the boss fight at the end. The rewards at the beginning and middle of the raid offer typically better than average weapons and armor in the game. The final chest of the raid usually has a chance to drop an exotic weapon that is very strong and unique. Unfortunately the chance of getting a raid exotic weapon is RNG based, in other words – random. The whole raid experience eventually becomes a grind in order to obtain the raid weapons. While this can be frustrating, it is also addicting and fun. 

My experience playing Destiny 2 has been positive. I’ve only dealt with a few bad situations, including some toxicity when raiding, as well as boredom when finishing most of the power leveling, and lack activities to get powerful rewards. Bungie admits that their game does face a content drought when players have finished all of their activities for power leveling. However, there has not been any real attempt as of late, to make a new and interesting replayable activity other than the raids. One hopes that Bungie still wants to improve their game and make it the best in the long run. 

I would recommend Destiny 2 to anyone who loves gaming and has a decent amount of free time on their hands. It is fun to play, and that fun continues for quite a long time before you will run out of things to do.