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Your Move: Destiny 2

Once upon a time, the creators of Halo on the Xbox decided to create a new series - this one would have a rich world, and would be online all the time so you could stumble upon battles between a group of players and the enemy at any time while patrolling around. The first game in this ambitious first-person shooter series, Destiny, came out three years ago, and fulfilled most of its promises but felt rather empty. Its sequel, Destiny 2, continues the story and fixes many problems from the first.

I had two big complaints with the first Destiny game. The story was nearly non-existent, told mostly through one character with poor voice acting. Destiny 2 fixes this with a much wider cast of characters, with solid performances from people like Nathan Fillion, John DiMaggio, and Bill Nighy. There are many more missions in this game, both required and optional, and every one of them adds to the depth of the story and the gameplay.

My second problem with the original game was the grind - once you finished the story, you had to replay those same missions over and over again to have a small chance to get a little bit stronger, just so you could play the Raid missions, which offered tiny chances to get gear to make you just a little bit stronger still. And, with all the best armor in the game coming from those Raids, everyone ended up wearing exactly the same stuff. No longer in Destiny 2 - there is still a grind, but it picks up much faster, and you have many more options in what gear you want to wear. Additionally, if you like what you’re wearing and you get something stronger, you can combine them to get the benefits of one, and the power of the other. This makes for much greater diversity, and really lets the game adapt to your play style rather than the other way around.

In its broad strokes, Destiny 2 isn’t that much different from its predecessor. Side-by-side, it’d be hard to tell a difference. But the game makes right everything that the original failed at, which for me, makes it a more-than-worthy successor.

Samuel McConnell is a games enthusiast who has been playing games in one form or another since 1991. He was born in northern Maine but quickly transplanted to Wichita.