What do I want to see from Destiny 2?

With the gameplay reveal of Destiny 2 just around the corner, I have spent a lot of time thinking about what I want to see in the sequel.

For all of it’s flaws, Destiny has been quite possibly my most played game of all time. I would imagine Guild Wars and Counter Strike: Source come pretty close, having been pretty hardcore on both of those games in years gone by. But Destiny has been both the most enjoyable and most frustrating game I have ever played.

It oozes potential, has some of the best core gameplay mechanics of any FPS (except maybe Doom 2016) and it has offered some of the finest experiences of any game – raids! Let down by questionable story telling, well no story really in year 1, curious content limitations and peer to peer connections Destiny has still been a gaming highlight.

Bungie has made mistakes along the way but Destiny 2 is the chance to deliver on all of that potential. Realistically there are just three things I want to see from Destiny 2

1. Bigger story

The basic outline has already been hinted at in the official reveal trailer but this is about more than that. I want to see story telling, character development and feel like my guardian is integral to the future.

I want the game to offer depth not just in Grimoire cards (though they are welcome) but in the game itself. Bungie offered some of the best narrative of Destiny with the Taken King, so we know Bungie can really deliver on this. Offering a bigger story branches into more missions, more content, more loot etc, it’s the core of the campaign and the first part of the game that everyone will experience. If this is good, the rest will fall into place.

2. Dedicated Servers

This one is important but in some ways isn’t essential. Right now the PvP experience in Destiny is marred by lag and poor connections. It’s not necessarily a player’s fault, with broadband connections here in the UK typically offering just 1 Mbit of upstream speed, playing peer to peer and the demands that places on each player’s connection can mar the experience. Lag becomes inevitable unless you are on a fibre connection which isn’t always possible.

The lag isn’t just an issue in PvP but can cause glitching and other issues in PvE as well. I’ve purposely not mentioned the issues of certain players using lag switches in PvP, it does happen in some cases, it’s an awful practice and I really don’t want to dedicate too much space to it, other than to say that it does happen.

Dedicated servers would fix all of these problems, the demands on each connection would be far less and even if you are limited to 1Mbit upstream you will still have a much smoother experience.

3. More regular content

Now this could be seen as greedy but having more live events like Sparrow Racing League, Age of Triumph etc would be good for the game. Each event doesn’t have to be huge but would add something else to be doing in game. There’s no limit to the type of events that could happen but seeing more of them would offer fresh activities and potentially some fresh loot, even if it is only of cosmetic value. Bungie have got better at doing this over the last year or so which is encouraging as long as the events aren’t focussed on micro transactions of course (Festival of the Lost 2016?)

I can’t wait to see what Destiny 2 has to offer, aside from the 3 things listed above I’m not looking for anything else, I want Bungie to surprise me (in a good way) and surprise the player base. I think we would all love to see Destiny 2 deliver on the potential that Destiny has offered.