Five Things Destiny Really Needs

Destiny was undoubtedly one of last year’s biggest titles. Bungie’s new sci-fi shooter divided opinion massively, with some people still playing it every day even now, six months after its September release, and others trading it in within three weeks. I was a part of the latter camp. I’d owned Destiny for a grand total of twenty days before I finally bit the bullet and trudged to a local videogame store to try and desperately recoup some of the funds I’d spent on it.

Thing is, however, I really wanted to love Destiny. I’d been looking forward to it since its initial reveal, enjoyed my time in the beta massively and was frothing at the bit to get my hands on it once again. But I was left feeling hugely underwhelmed when it was finally released.

Of course, that’s all on me, and I know some people really do love Destiny and have been addictively shooting aliens for going on hundreds of hours now. I do appreciate all that Destiny got right: its shooting mechanics are second to none, and it’s a great game for people who just want to jump in, do their daily bounties and leave. It’s also a very good game to just have on and zone out to. But alas, it just didn’t grab me. However, I still have a big interest in Destiny, and believe that the inevitable sequel may just turn things around for me. If the game made these few changes in the next iteration, then I’d definitely give it another go.

1. A Proper Story

Probably the most obvious thing of all, but yeah: Destiny really needs a story. They’ve done all the ground work! They’ve got a beautiful world, a compelling concept and tonnes of really interesting lore that I’d love nothing more than to learn while actually playing the game (not going on to some app to read effing Grimoire cards). Just give me a solid 8 – 10 hour single player campaign, with a compelling, memorable story, some cool characters and I’ll love the game. A really interesting narrative would pull me into the world, and then I would want to play everything else the game has to offer, I would want to go through the really complicated levelling system, I’d do all that because I’d be invested in the world. I loved the Halo stories despite disliking the actual games, and that’s what makes it even more infuriating: we already know that Bungie can do it.

2. More Interaction with the World

Bungie created such a beautiful, intriguing world in Destiny, but you can’t interact with it unless you’re shooting it. Shall I tell you the most fun I had in Destiny’s world? It was genuinely the time I spent kicking a football about in the Tower. I found it cool that I could just chill and kick it around for no good reason. So give me more things to interact with in the real world. Give me more interesting places to find, give me interesting things to find. Let my adventures in to some rocky alcove be meaningful, not just end with me facing a wall.

3. More Gimmicks!

The most fun I had while actually playing Destiny, by an absolute mile, was when I got to slice aliens to tiny little pieces with a big fucking sword. So why wasn’t there more of that? I confess, I didn’t make it much further into the game than that point, and I’ve been told that you can now get hold of the sword quite regularly on the Earth and Moon, which is great. However, I wanted more of it from the off – and not just the sword, either. The sword may have been quite gimmicky, but it gave me something different to do after hours of robotically plastering alien brains over the walls, and it was a great change of pace. In fact, why can’t I carry a massive melee weapon with me at all times as my primary weapon? Because I sure would; I’m a player who loves tense, close quarters combat, so I’d love it if my main means of dealing death was a big fucking sword. Variety is the watchword here.

4. Raids for Lower Levels

I completely understand that the Raids are a reward for players who earn the right to be there, and I also the get that the point of them is that they are really hard, so a higher level is needed, but on many accounts the Raids are the best bit about Destiny, so why would you keep them behind such a high boundary? I really wanted to experience the raid, but there was no way in a million years I was ever getting to the level necessary because the game just didn’t interest me enough to carry on that far, and so I never got a chance. But had I been given a Raid to play, even one that was a lot easier and wasn’t as gripping as the Vault of Glass, but still contained all the puzzling and the need for coordinated team work, I may just have been compelled to press on and reach the level required to play the harder Raids.

5. Improved Multiplayer Balance

I loved the Crucible initially. I thought the multiplayer was fun, action packed and best of all I was half decent at it. But then a weird switch seemed to be pressed and suddenly I was continuously getting pummelled. I then realised that I was getting totally annihilated by players who’d already reached level 20 and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it. I specifically remember multiple incidences where I was shooting an enemy for a good five seconds square on, but every time they were able to waltz towards me and kill me. It was infuriating. Maybe that is all on me, maybe I’m just an atrocious player, but either way, to me it felt really unbalanced and as if I was at a complete disadvantage to those of a higher level than me, and that made it a whole lot less fun. I also hear, however, that a lot of work has gone into tweaking the multiplayer since last I played, so I may well go on to try it again in the future.

So they’re the changes I’d like to see implemented in the next Destiny game, and if they are, it will definitely get me interested in the game again. Do you agree with me? What changes, if any, would you like to see in the Destiny sequel? Let me know in the comments below.