Will Destiny 2 come to PC? Here's everything we know so far, and what we want if it does

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Destiny 2 character importing

Destiny Character Creator

Bungie have announced their plans for handling character importing between Destiny and Destiny 2. To avoid brand new players getting stomped in PVP by Guardians rocking end game gear, only cosmetic features will be imported into Destiny 2.

This is good news for any potential cross platform play, as new PC players do not have to worry about being vastly behind the equipment curve of veterans. It is uncertain at this time if console players will be able to import their character from the first game to the expected PC version, so expect further explanation on this import system from Bungie in the future.

Destiny 2 release date

As of an Activision/Blizzard earnings call in February 2017, Destiny 2 is on track for a 2017 launch. The original Destiny, and its two biggest expansions - The Taken King and Rise of Iron - have all launched in September of the last three years, so barring any surprise delays, that's probably the window Activision are targeting. Eurogamer corroborate this idea, as do Kotaku, who even suggest that if developers Bungie miss that window, Activision automatically own "a hefty chunk" of the currently independent studio's stock. Ouch. If that's true, expect Bungie to ship anything, even if it's full of bugs, before the end of the year.

Destiny 2 was probably always going to happen. Before the first game even released, documents showed that Bungie were planning sequels every other year up until 2019. And with over 25 million players and more than three billion hours played, Destiny has been a monumental success. That’s a sequel guarantee right there.    

Destiny 2 - sequel or expansion? 

Destiny - Prison of Elders

Up until now, new Destiny content has been added through updates and expansion packs, akin to classic MMOs like World of Warcraft. But now that a Destiny project has a number after the name rather than a subtitle, what will be different about Destiny 2 compared to those expansions?

Kotaku claim to have been told that the attitude towards Destiny 2 is similar to that of Diablo 2. It’s a game that will iterate on its predecessor, but won’t look to transfer across player characters and progress. It will provide a fresh start, albeit in an established universe. It’s a direction we last saw ArenaNet take with Guild Wars 2, which required no knowledge or play time of the original Guild Wars, but built upon the first game’s universe, lore, and systems.

Industry tipster Shinobi, who has reported accurate leaks in the past, concurs with Kotaku on many points. He says the unwieldy creation tools of the original made it difficult to put out new content, and have necessitated a fundamental overhaul of the game and its engine.

So the best theory right now is that Destiny 2 will be exactly how it sounds: a new, standalone sequel, rather than a huge expansion of the first.

Is Destiny 2 coming to PC?

Destiny - Guardians with an Ice Breaker

If Destiny 2 is indeed going to be a full sequel and a fresh start, that makes it the perfect entry point for PC players. Without the need for a previous character or knowledge of the first game’s story, PC gamers can jump into Destiny 2 without feeling lost.

Indeed such a decision, if true, feels as if it’s been designed with the intention of ushering in thousands of new players. A report by Eurogamer suggests that's an explicit goal of the new game, with Destiny 2 designed to be "more accessible to casual players.

KotakuShinobi, and posters on NeoGAF all agree that Destiny 2 is coming to PC. Kotaku and the NeoGAFers also report that Activision-owned developer Vicarious Visions are working on the PC version. They were involved in Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, so it’s conceivable that the primarily Skylanders studio could be helping out on an FPS. If Destiny 2 is coming to PC, it'll be Bungie's debut on our fair platform, so it makes sense that Activision are drafting in more experienced studios to help.

Destiny 2 story

Plenty has leaked (from sources of varying credibility) about Destiny 2's potential story, and plenty can be surmised based on the events of the first game and its expansions.

A supposed leak in February 2017 claims that Destiny 2 will be subtitled Forge of Hope and see the militaristic Cabal attack the Last City. Marketing director Eric Osborne and director Luke Smith both poured scorn on this, and there's plenty else about the leak that smells off, so we suggest you entirely dismiss any new information it contains. But some of it is not-absurd speculation based on stuff we'd already heard elsewhere.

The Cabal

The suggestion that the plot will focus on the Cabal is, at this point, pretty likely. They're the only enemy faction in the original game to have not featured in their own expansion, and a couple of missions in The Taken King teased a Cabal retaliation after the player and the Taken themselves basically crushed their presence in the solar system.

new range of Mega Bloks tie-in sets feature the Cabal prominently, with NPCs Lord Shaxx and Commander Zavala duelling Cabal soldiers in the Tower, the player's headquarters in the first game. This does suggest that the Cabal will attack the Tower at some point.

Finally, there are the two leaks we mentioned earlier from Shinobi and Kotaku's Jason Schreir, who are far more credible and confirm one another in many specifics, notably the focus on the Cabal. The Forge of Nope leaker is, for the most part, just picking up on details they already shared.

Destiny 2 - what we'd like to see

We’d really love to see Destiny 2 arrive on PC, so much so that we already have a small-ish wish list of all the new things we’d like to see included. 

Raid matchmaking 

Destiny - The Vault of Glass

If Destiny 2 arrives on PC, then there are a few things that need cleaning up before it’s ready to stand among our strong collective of MMOs and FPSs. The most important improvement required is matchmaking and looking for group support. 

If you’re unfamiliar with Destiny’s current gaping, festering wound, the situation is as thus: to play the game’s raids you need to team up with people on your friends list. Raids cannot be played with randomers. Whatsmore, you need to have five people accompany you to fill the team. 

This has meant many players have been unable to experience Destiny’s raids. Don’t have five friends on PSN or Xbox Live? Tough luck. Have five friends but one of them is busy or in another time zone? Sorry. 

Destiny 2 needs a solution to this. Raids are the most impressive elements of Destiny, and they’re locked behind a completely unnecessary wall. The solution is easy: either multiplayer-like matchmaking (which Destiny currently uses for its lower-stakes Strikes) or a looking for group system that allows players to find people who are also interested in doing the same raid.

Playing with randomers is also slightly easier on PC thanks to typed chat. It’s a convenient way to communicate if you don’t have or don’t like to talk through a headset, and a luxury that console users don’t have. It means the communication Bungie claims is mandatory in raids is easily achieved on PC. So if there’s no ability to play raids with non-friends in at least our version of Destiny 2, something will have gone seriously wrong.  

A living, social world

Destiny - Cayde-6

Destiny’s shared world is truly beautiful, but it’s lacking in anything that makes it feel alive. Planets are abandoned husks of long-gone civilisations, feeling atmospheric but ultimately hollow. Destiny 2 needs more life. 

Rather than only having The Tower as an area to meet other players and engage with quest-givers and traders, the whole of Destiny 2’s universe needs places of congregation. We want cities filled with vendors and mission opportunities, small outposts with NPCs to talk to, and more chances to meet with other players in the open-world. 

We know that Destiny is more of a huge scale co-op shooter than MMO, but learning lessons from WoW and the like will help prevent it from being an overly isolating experience. 

Stronger mission design

Destiny - Hive on Earth

Being a Bungie game, the shooting in Destiny is top-notch. While we expect a variety of improvements to the gun handling in Destiny 2, it’s more so what you do with those weapons that concerns us. Destiny is fun moment to moment, but it’s let down by oft repetitive mission design. Far too often the first game relied on standard corridor shooting or defending an objective from waves of enemies. 

We want to see a huge increase in mission variety with stronger objective design. How about some clever platforming, making use of the classes unique jump abilities? Or an interesting use of pace, mixing up frantic firefights with quieter moments that allow us to learn more of the universe’s lore. And there really, really needs to be some grander scale, jaw-dropping set piece missions. Bungie are the creators of Halo, afterall. That legacy needs to shine through.  

Better storytelling

Destiny - The Exo Stranger

Talking of that legacy, we need to see more Halo-like storytelling in Destiny 2. The first game’s plot felt so slim that it practically disappeared through the miniscule gap between atoms. The sequel desperately needs to fix this. NPCs must have personality and offer more to say than repetitive small talk. Missions need narrative arcs that evolve as they progress, be that through scripted set-piece moments, meetings with characters, or environmental storytelling. 

The Taken King expansion was a massive leap for Destiny, using cutscenes to turn what were soulless NPC quest-givers into integral characters. But that won’t be enough for Destiny 2. We all hoped the first game would be an MMO Halo, akin to how The Old Republic was a real BioWare RPG with thousands of players. Now is the time for Bungie to realise that dream.     

Spaceship stuff

Destiny - Jumpship on Mars

Destiny is set in space, and each and every player gets a spaceship. Nice! There is one monumental problem, though: spaceships are literally just loading screen decals. The only time they can be seen is in the animations between missions. You can buy new ships, but all you’re doing is spending your character’s hard-earned cash on a prettier loading screen. 

Spaceships need to be a core part of Destiny 2. They should be thought of as a kind of player housing: a personal space for each user that can be jazzed up with trophies from missions, decked out with a cargo bay to stash excess loot in, and - importantly - manually flown. 

Let’s have some dogfighting missions, Bungie. The studio last had a crack at space battles in Halo: Reach and, while it wasn’t the game's most memorable mission, it was a solid blueprint for something better. Combined with their vehicle combat experience, Bungie certainly has the skill required to make some great space battle sequences, so let’s see that become a reality. 

Replies • 96
Lunar

Nice, always wanted to play the first destiny but I don't have a console so... :(



Im still loving this game, graphically i cant wait to hear if it ports to PC to really show this games eye candy, and raids i really hope surpass 10 people like at least 2-3 epic raids with a huge boss or something with a lot of people...maybe make a boss a faction mini war between the 3 factions? there is so much to steal from warcraft lol but it would be awesome to put into destiny 2....hope this next game is a success and waaaaaaay more social of a shooter mmo. 



Solar

Hope so, skipped out the first game since it wasn't on PC...



potato

Like a lot of people I've never played the first game because it was limited to consoles


All I remember about Destiny 1 is people shooting into a cave for hours trying to get good loot.  Looked pretty boring to me.



Красиво, всегда хотел играть первую судьбу, но у меня нет консоли так... :(