‘Destiny 2’ European Dead Zone Is Twice As Big As Any World Bungie Has Created So Far

When Bungie revealed Destiny 2 on stage during the livestream event last Thursday in Los Angeles, the developer mentioned the sequel was larger than the original game. That begs the questions of how much bigger, however, and World Lead Steve Cotton let slip the potential size of one of the new worlds PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC gamers can look forward to during an interview with the Inquisitr at the event.

“The European Dead Zone is probably twice as big as any world we’ve ever made in terms of the amount of real estate and things to do, all the different places you can go,” Cotton told me. “It’s big. Not just the real estate, but like I said, the activities that you can do there.”

This should be great news for Destiny fans as the European Dead Zone (EDZ) was one of the zones featured in the original game’s concept art and has been a requested destination outside of a pair of Crucible maps.

In Destiny 2, the EDZ is where humanity retreats following the Cabal Red Legion invading the Last City and the Tower. A farm-like social area will serve as the new home for Guardians here and will provide a starting point for exploring more of the new area, as well as a place to store and buy gear.

The EDZ is just one of the new worlds players will explore in Destiny 2. As previously covered, these include the Saturn moon of Titan, the Jupiter moon Io, and the visiting Nessus. This last location is a centaur planet whose irregular orbit will bring it into our solar system during the game, according to Games Radar.

The activities in the EDZ and other new worlds includes a revamped patrol. Bungie keeps the hunt for resources while also adding new public events and new activities, such as Adventures and Lost Sectors. Cotton spoke a little about what the two new activities bring to the table in Destiny 2.

“I talk about patrols being the one thing you can do when you explore [in Destiny 1]. You have some other things you can do when you explore, like hunt chests and things like that,” Cotton said. “But now, you have adventures which are 10 to 15-minute long missions that characters in the world give you to do. There are plenty of them scattered throughout the world.”

“These adventures, for me, these have some of the most novel and interesting encounters and mechanics that you see in the world,” the Bungie World lead continued. “I played an adventure on Nessus where I crafted this Vex tower out of nothing. These platforms just materialized and I had to fight all the way up while other people are doing their thing down there and they can see everything I’m doing. It takes 10 to 15 minutes to do it.”

If this plays as described, it is already an upgrade over Patrols in Destiny 1, which Cotton admitted were little more than “go here and kill things.” The adventures are not all as he also spoke about the new Lost Sectors missions.

“The Lost Sectors are kind of the opposite. You find a door and you can go somewhere in Destiny 2, somewhere important. You go down and down, until you find a boss and kill the boss to get some loot,” he explained.

I asked Cotton if the Lost Sectors might cause a “Loot Cave”-like problem where players farm the same Lost Sector over and over. He assured that loot is given out only once per character with these events. Players can still go back and play them to help friends or for other reasons, however.

For the Destiny 2 “Red War” campaign, Cotton was very careful with the words he used.

He couldn’t talk about the number of missions that will be available, but he did say, “I think it’s longer. It’s in the same ballpark. It’s longer because of all the things we ask you to do.”

As previously covered, there will also be more cinematic cut-scenes in the Destiny 2 campaign than in the original game. Supporting characters like Commander Zavala, Ikora Rey, Cayde-6, and others will play a larger role. Meanwhile, the villainous Dominus Ghaul (aka Gary) will have cutscenes to properly provide his motivations instead of being hidden away in Grimoire cards.

Destiny 2 is scheduled for a September 8 launch on the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. The PC version will be released sometime later.

[Disclosure: Activision provided travel and hotel accommodations so that I could attend the Destiny 2 gameplay reveal.]

[Featured Image by Bungie/Activision]