‘Destiny 2’ May 18 Gameplay Reveal A Live Event In L.A., What To Expect And What We Hope To See

Bungie and Activision already announced Destiny 2 would be getting a gameplay reveal on May 18. The developer and publisher left out one minor detail, though. The reveal is actually a full day live event in Los Angeles, California where the press and select streaming personalities will have the opportunity to go hands-on with the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC game themselves.

This writer received an invitation from Activision to attend the event, accompanied by a Cayde-6 figure and a Ghost pin as seen in the image below. The Destiny 2 Gameplay Premiere will kick off at 1 p.m. ET / 10 a.m. PT at the Jet Center in Hawthorne, California. A keynote from an Activision or Bungie representative will start things off.

What to Expect

Expect a greater introduction to the story of the Cabal invading the Last City and driving the Guardians out of the Tower. Yes, everyone’s stuff is destroyed, especially Cayde-6’s, so more details about where that leaves players starting out in Destiny 2 and how their journey begins will be of great interest.

The Cabal Red Legion, led by Ghaul (aka Gary), will be a highlight as well. The debut trailer showed some new Cabal units like the dual-sword wielding soldier and a hound-like creature.

One key point to keep an eye on is the tagline on the back of the invitation received by the games press and streaming personalities. It states, “Welcome to a world without light.”

Light has been the key gameplay and story element in Destiny since it released. Guardians are powered by the Traveler’s light, their abilities are derived from it, their weapons are infused with it, and they can be resurrected because of it. The debut trailer showed the Traveler on fire, so the implications of what this means for the player, at least at the start, will be interesting to find out.

Following the keynote, Destiny 2 will be playable on the PlayStation 4 and PC. Members of the press and streaming personalities will have the opportunity to go hands-on with the game on both platforms and record footage of the console version. There will be no direct captures of the PC version of the game at this event.

It’s unknown if only PVE activities will be playable or if Crucible will be featured as well. Bungie has typically made both available in the past, so it is safe to assume both will be on hand in some form.

What We Hope to See

More Lore

The lore of Destiny is a largely undiscovered gem for most of the gaming public. Buried in unlockable Grimoire notes that can only be read outside of the game, much of the Destiny backstory is lost to all but the most dedicated players.

Hopefully, Destiny 2 will see more of the lore be brought into the game or expanded through transmedia partnerships. The Halo franchise has largely been successful at expanding its universe through comic books, novels, the occasional live-action series, and even a radio play. Fans would likely dive into something similar with the Destiny universe.

Performance Improvements

Destiny ran at 30 frames per second (fps) for both PVE activities and PVP activities like the Crucible and Trials of Osiris. This can be partially attributed to supporting the legacy consoles, and with that out of the way, Bungie will hopefully be able to up the frame rate to 60 fps in Crucible at the very latest.

Gears of War 4 and other titles demonstrated it is just fine to have the campaign run at 30 fps to turn up the details and spectacle in the campaign while player versus player modes run at 60 fps. Hopefully, this is the case with Destiny 2.

Dedicated servers

This builds off the performance wishes. The Crucible in Destiny was a struggle at times, in part because of peer-to-peer connections. It wasn’t the entire reason, but there are definite disadvantages to having a player’s console host a PVP match. While PVE activities can go either way, hopefully, Crucible modes will feature dedicated servers for Destiny 2‘s PVP to allow competitive modes to move forward.

Public Test Server

One of the benefits of Destiny 2 coming to the PC is that it opens the opportunity for Bungie to run a Public Test Server. Games like Overwatch, SMITE, World of Warcraft, and many others use this to ensure no nasty bugs slip into a game update that breaks characters, abilities or the game in general. These are things Destiny players encountered over the three years of release, and it is something Inquistr wrote about before.

A Public Test Server on consoles is hard to run because of Microsoft’s and Sony’s certification processes, however. This makes the PC release a golden opportunity to introduce the option for Crucible at the very least.

Meaningful vehicle gameplay

One odd thing about Destiny is the vehicle gameplay never had the same impact on the game as Bungie’s Halo releases. Additionally, the one multiplayer mode that featured vehicles never felt particularly well-balanced or fully developed.

Granted, Guardians are already incredibly powerful characters to play, and the Sparrow is a blast to ride and race. However, exciting combat vehicle sections in story missions, strikes, and especially Crucible could be a welcome addition to Destiny 2.

The Cast and Characters

Nolan North (Ghost), Nathan Fillion (Cayde-6), Gina Torres (Ikora), Lance Reddick (Commander Zavala) and others aren’t just interesting characters, but they are pretty entertaining people as well. The debut trailer implied Cayde-6 would play a prominent role in Destiny 2, and there will be an even greater infusion of humor. Still, it will be interesting to find out how being evicted from the Tower will sit with their characters. More importantly, we still need to find out the fate of Prince Uldren, plus where Eris Morn’s allegiances truly lie.

In Game Looking for Group (LFG)

The addition of LFG to the Xbox One has been a boon for Destiny players, but that still leaves PlayStation 4 and PC players in need of LFG solutions. Bungie has largely relied on third party sites, like the100.io and DestinyLFG to pick up the Raid and Nightfall matchmaking load. Hopefully, that will change with Destiny 2.

[Featured Image by Bungie / Activision]