Despite its marketability, though, Destiny was met with a merely moderately positive critical reception that foretold fan concerns. Some have been addressed through a variety of patches, but others remain.
Every Guardian’s story starts out the same in Destiny, although the journey they take and how they progress through the game’s expansive world differ greatly from player to player. The opening scene of Destiny has a Ghost making its way through Old Russia. The Ghost can be seen scanning several human remains looking for something. A Guardian. It finds you, resurrects you, and warns you that you’ve been dead for a long time and you won’t understand much of what you see. That’s quite the understatement considering many players still don’t know what exactly is going on in Destiny, thanks to its vast expanse of under-explained lore.
While Guardians made their way through Destiny, we felt secure in the way Bungie handled character progression as it appeared to be a cookie-cutter first-person RPG experience. Players would kill aliens, complete missions, and hand in bounties to earn experience. That’s not all as we were presented with new armor, weapons, and various crafting material, among other things. But once we hit level 20, Destiny’s Light system would come into play, and that’s where many players became frustrated with the game.
Prior to the release of Destiny 2.0. Guardians would progress beyond level 20 by equipping gear that would infuse them with Light. The problem with the system was it now demanded players to farm for their gear in order to level up, which is why Loot Caves became so popular. What made matters worse was Bungie locked away certain content, such as Raids, unless Guardians reached a certain Light level. Players were understandably frustrated with how Bungie had configured progression in Destiny. To make matters worse, we all learned what an absolute jerk the Cryptarch could be.
Destiny’s Cryptarch is an NPC able to decipher engrams Guardians pick up during their adventures, making him a necessary gatekeeper to achieving higher-level gear. At its launch, the Cryptarch could be quite unfair in what kind of gear he would reward Guardians, often giving them something that was well below the item type that was promised. Shortly after Destiny’s launch, Bungie made some tweaks to the Cryptarch to make things a little more fair, but the studio would continue making tweaks to the NPC throughout the majority of Destiny’s first year. It’s a shame the Cryptarch couldn’t also decipher Destiny’s story.
While Bungie’s previous Halo series had a full-fledged story, Destiny feels like it’s a work in progress as there are still many aspects of the game that aren't quite filled in. We learned about the various alien life that have set out to control the universe, such as the Fallen, Hive, Vex, and Cabal. Throughout Destiny’s campaign, players will focus on one of these species, specifically stopping them from completing a ritual of some sort that would cause them to control everything.
The majority of its story is told through a Guardians’ Ghost companion, which could be one of the reasons why it was hard to keep track. Another reason could be due to reports of its story receiving large cuts prior to the game’s release, which would be slowly pieced together with the launch of future expansion packs. The Dark Below and House of Wolves did help round out Destiny’s lore a bit, but players still had a lot of questions that were left unanswered. What sparked the return of the Darkness? Who exactly is the Speaker? Why is Xur obsessed with Strange Coins?
To its credit, though, Bungie has fielded complaints with a level of grace, and has been open about some common complaints and how it would address them. Most of these adjustments have come in the form of a large series of updates.
