Destiny 2 has so much potential, but wound up feeling spectacularly unimpressive

THE sequel to the acclaimed space adventure game Destiny is out next month but will it live up to the hype?

SAVING the galaxy has a lot of cool benefits. You get a pimp set of armour, a laser gun, some sidekicks, a sweet spaceship, and all the adventure the special effects budget will allow for.

There’s a reason it’s a popular theme for movies and computer games, epitomised by the recent release of the eagerly awaited Destiny 2.

Developed by Bungie and published by Activision on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One with the PC version due in October, the game is the sequel to the acclaimed space adventure game Destiny.

Your player is part of a galactic group known as Guardians. Despite the space setting, none of them appear to be talking raccoons, sentient trees, or fond of classic hits from the 70s to the 90s, however.

Destiny 2 has the distinction of being one of those games which assume you played the prequel and pretty much carries straight on from there, with the gaming equivalent of “Previously on ...” making a token appearance as an aide-mémoire rather than an introduction to new players.

Sadly, I missed Destiny so as a result I spent almost the entire first hour of this game asking my cat “What is going on here? Who are these people? What am I shooting at?” and getting about as many useful answers from him as I was from the game.

The game opens with aliens attacking the futuristic city you’re defending, trying to capture something called The Traveller, and shooting everything and everyone. Something called “The Light” is very important for some reason, not just because it means you can’t be killed (you’ll just respawn nearby) but something something galactic mystery.

Initially I found the game was giving me a strong impression of being like Call of Duty and The Division crossed with Mass Effect, but that’s not really an apt comparison since I’ve had a lot of fun playing those games and not nearly as much fun with Destiny 2.

Pretty much my entire time with Destiny 2 was spent feeling like someone who decided to start watching Game of Thrones in series 4 and has no idea why all these people are murdering and getting gratuitously naked over an uncomfortable-looking chair made of old swords.

What’s particularly disconcerting is how well done some individual aspects of Destiny 2 are, but then they’re misapplied. For example, the score is this beautiful, epic, sweeping orchestral and choral style — but it sounds like it belongs in a high fantasy setting like an Elder Scrolls game or The Lord Of The Rings rather than a space opera.

I was also very aware of the music, which is generally not a good thing for a game — it’s usually supposed to subtly set the mood or atmosphere, not have you constantly wondering whether there’s a troupe of wandering minstrels about and if they might be able to help with some of the heavy lifting.

The graphics are actually outstanding, with plenty of detail and an impressive sense of place and scale.

The graphics are outstanding, with plenty of detail and an impressive sense of place and scale, but you’re usually far too busy running and/or shooting through them to really stop and admire the artists’ work.

Your character doesn’t speak either, with their strange AI-like companion doing all the talking for them — something that comes across as either being something from an old vaudeville routine or the developers not wanting to pay for voice talent to give players a variety of voice options.

Ultimately, there was nothing new or engaging in Destiny 2 to grab me. Sci-fi shooters aren’t new (Yes, thank you Halo, we can see you waving hello from over there), multiplayer loot-shooters aren’t new (Borderlands 2 and The Division being notable examples) and at the risk of paraphrasing a quote from Peter “Family Guy” Griffin, it seemed to me that Destiny 2 insisted upon itself.

On paper the game ticks a lot of boxes but it somehow doesn’t add up to more than the sum of its parts.

I could almost feel the creators saying “See? Look how epic this is? Isn’t this epic? Space! Robots! Classically trained actors! Music you should be fighting a dragon to!”

The problem was ultimately I didn’t care. I had little to no idea what was going on, the combat was unremarkable and I was sick of being mobbed by enemies all the time — there really were a lot of them — and the user interface was decidedly non-intuitive as well.

The loot was uninspiring too — are “Refugee gloves” good or bad? Is this gun much better than my other gun? What are these glowing squares in this crate? — and it all seemed pretty average; I never once found something that made me go “Niiiiiiice”.

There’s a large multiplayer component as well — some would say that’s a bigger draw than the main story — but again, there’s no shortage of co-op games you can play with your friends and I just couldn’t see how Destiny 2 offered anything really new or different in that regard.

I’m not going to say Destiny 2 is a bad game, because the fact it seems half of Australia’s gaming population have put their lives on hold to play it suggests it’s doing something right.

I am, however, going to come out and say that I did not enjoy playing Destiny 2, that whatever it was trying to do utterly failed to engage with me, and I much of my time playing the game included a profound sense of irritation and disappointment.

It’s been suggested that forthcoming expansions will improve the game and that remains to be seen, but to be fair the previous title was reportedly markedly enhanced by its DLC as well.

For now I am spectacularly unimpressed by this game — which is a shame, because on paper it ticked a lot of boxes which just didn’t come together on-screen for me.