Review: Destiny 2 PC

At the moment, there’s probably no finer example of this than Destiny 2 . Among the many problems afflicting it, the most basic is probably the fact that, at its core, the game is a compromise. It’s a watered-down version of what made the original Destiny enjoyable, done for the sake of attracting a more casual audience. Annoying grind or not, Destiny 1 was more about the hunt than it was the acquisition. Rather, it might be better to say that the hunt was what made the acquisition fun. The hunt took commitment though. Gathering exotic, raid and perfectly-rolled gear took time. It took patience. It meant throwing oneself into the grind until they finally earned the prize they sought. The lack of content variety was certainly annoying, but the way Destiny was set up made the effort feel rewarding all the same. Not everyone enjoys this sort of game though. It’s not as easy to drop in and play as, say, Call of Duty or Halo 5. This is what Bungie "fixed" in Destiny 2. Now, the hunt is basically gone. Every piece of gear one can get is exactly the same as everyone else’s. "Rare" loot can be earned by literally doing nothing, exotics no longer feel special and character builds are practically nonexistent. It’s much easier to jump in as a new or casual player, but why should they bother? In its pursuit of the casual audience, Destiny 2 wound up sacrificing the very thing that made the original fun engage in: the actual hunt and effort required to obtain rare loot. Destiny 2 isn’t the only game to suffer in this way though. Just look at Fallout 4 or even Dead Space 3.

There’s no real choices and trade-offs to be made anymore. The same goes for the rest of the game. The in-depth and often rewarding dialogue trees are gone, replaced with options that boil down to whether or not the player character is going to be either nice or sarcastic nice. There are no karma checks, no skill checks, no special checks, nor even long and interesting conversations to be had. Dialogue might as well just be there because previous Fallout games had it. The list could go on, but is perhaps better saved for another time. As it stands,Fallout 4 has gained massive mainstream success. It just had to become a different game in order to get it; a game that’s much more a shooter with RPG elements than it is an RPG with shooter elements. It became a game one that fans of the old Fallout games have grown to hate and possibly a series that RPG fans in may no longer care about in the future. Taken on it’s own It’s a decent game, but one that has nonetheless been compromised for the sake of short-term sales. The same is true of Dead Space 3.
Following The Collapse, the remainder of Humanity was not too happy to see The Fallen mysteriously appearing. While Humans were picking themselves up after nearly being wiped out, these tribal scavengers swooped in to pick at the remains. With constant battles against the Guardians, most notably the Battle of the Twilight Gap, The Fallen were relentless with their assaults against The Last City in order to gain access to the Traveler. Unfortunately, they were mostly unsuccessful (with both sides sustaining high casualties), at least not until they were able to section off an area of Earth that contained SiVA technology, but that’ll come much later. One of the most well known tribes, The House of Wolves, went to battle with The Reef during this time, which they ultimately lost. Now, while The Fallen are plentiful, their houses have become disorganized and their allegiances varying.

As for graphical fidelity, Destiny 2 offers more than enough to make PC users happy. Outside of being able to enable windowed fullscreen with upwards of 4K resolution, we are given a Field of View slider, Anti-Aliasing, SSAO, Texture Anisotropy, Texture & Shadow Quality, and Depth of Field selection. In addition, there’s environment, character, foliage and shadow detail distance, as well as Light Shaft, Motion Blur, Wind Impulse, Internal Render Resolution percentage, HDR for those with HDR screens, Chromatic Aberration and Film Grain. There’s even the option to display your FPS. Whew. As we mentioned, there’s a lot of options to go through, along with a VRAM Usage meter at the top to get a better grasp of your hardware capabilities. The ability to play Destiny 2 at 60 FPS is a game changer, especially if you can play it at a higher resolution such as 1440p or 4K. This feels like a game that’s made for it, and you won’t want to go back afterwards. Overall, the developers have done an amazing job bringing this to PC from a visual standpoint.

Hardcore Gamer went hands-on with the PS4 and PC versions of the upcoming game and if what we played is anything to go by, Bungie may have a real winner. While Destiny 2 may not change the minds of those opposed to loot shooter or MMO-lite mechanics, it will make those who were disappointed by the original game very happy. Destiny 2 Edge of Fate 2 is bigger, better structured and packs a more powerful punch.