So, today was quite frankly a shit day for Destiny players. The news that maybe we knew would eventually come but always hoped we didn’t have to see. Destiny 2 will get its FINAL UPDATE on June 9th. After that future plans are no longer in play and basically it’s time as a constant live service game will be over. While the game will still live and be playable much of this discourse feels like an end. All over socials players, current and former are talking about this and Destiny and Bungie are trending again for good and bad. There is alot of emotion around it right now and that is understandable. I could talk about al of this, and much more but instead I want to take this time to start looking back and reflecting on my time with the game.
In a way to understand my love of Destiny we need to go back quite a bit. 11years in fact! to 2014 the year Destiny arrived. While Bungie was know to many because of Halo on Xbox, I actually didn’t know a thing about them. Even despite owning an Xbox myself. I wasn’t into that type of game, I was more into other games Need for Speed was one of them. I actually only found out about Destiny when I bought myself a PS4 console and the game with it for my 32nd birthday. I went into this game having NO IDEA about it.
September 18th 2014 was my very first day in Destiny. And little did I know that day would be the start of a crazy 11years of insanity just from a little game. I, had no clues on how to play it. Controls were funky, instructions weren’t clear and I was STUCK ON THAT INTRO MISSION FOR FOUR DAYS. Yep. four days. Crazy stuff. I look at this memory and can’t help but laugh at how stupid I was! Eventually after I got past that I’d go on and play the original base story on my own, learning as I went. Dying to all sort of stupid things from falling off ledges, maps, failing jumps and having no ammo to use. I hated respawn restricted zones especially solo. But I slowly but surely learnt to use grenades, melees and supers, being conservative with ammo, and learning little things as I went. Level grinding was new to me I didn’t really pay attention and just ent along with it. Much of my first experience with Destiny, I did solo and learnt from trial and error. Didn’t look up guides, didn’t watch YT nothing. As I neared the finale missions it was getting a bit harder for me. So during a patrol on Mars I saw another Guardian lurking around and decided to invite them and they joined. Was a bit of surprise to be honest as I’d never played with randoms much in other games. This individual (Kingly or something to that affect) helped me through the last two base missions of Destiny. While I never really played with this person again and have no idea what happened to them I’m grateful they joined that day.
As time progressed I continued to play Destiny a lot that year, not obsessed but certainly hooked. I liked being able to explore areas, and use different weapons. Learning how to upgrade that subclass skill tree and trying to find what worked for me. Collecting materials on patrols for hours on end. Something about Destiny was that is was simple, yet complicated with wonder mystery not knowing what enemy was sitting around a corner waiting to catch up by surprised. Minators coming out of the corner to one hit you from behind, Fallen Vandals one shoting you from miles away, Cabal guys happy to send you flying into walls unexpectedly.
Then Vault of Glass the first raid in Destiny launched. I, was too shy to play with randoms and the thought of five other randoms scared me. But, I was curious. It was a while before I decided to go into the raid but after it had been out for a while I studied the raid guides that did come out. I spent a lot of time reading how to do each encounter, had it ingrained in my brain, making sure if I needed to do something in a specific encounter I could do it. I don’t really recall much of that first experience but I know it dint go far. Think I remember seeing us maybe go as fast as attemtping the confuses encounter that was it and people kinda left after that. I also, during this time had to learn to ‘make friends’ online as well and so I ventured into a Facebook from named Destiny Australia (and over time got banned from it lol) and got into meeting people some people that hopefully would teach me the raid. One of people I met is named Ninja, also by the point I got helped to do VOG by people most had already learnt and knew the raid well. I don’t recall who organised it but someone eventually said they’d carry me through it and on the 24th December 2014 I got my first ever raid completion in a game let alone Destiny. And I did it without having any mic communications to the entire team lol. As said I learnt the raid mechanics before hand, but I helped mainly with ad control throughout and let the ‘experts’ I guess do the work but I still learnt by watching what they were doing It was amazing to have people teach me as best they could. One memory that stuck in my mind from that first raid was the part after the Templar as we got to crawl through the cave to the next area. I was so lost, it was dark and had no idea where to go! I remember someone shouting constantly in the dark so the bullets would reflect where to go!
Following that raid triumph I soon stepped into the world of Destiny clans. And yes was that a very, interesting thing to do in an online game! Ninja (who I mentioned earlier) was basically the clan founder, he was nice it was fun for a while. I am not going to go into major details of what our friendship / relationship was because that is not the point on this point. Basically OZ Raiders was the clan and we were the ones that ran it. I played with him alot because it as just easier and he as teaching me alot about the game itself. We were running VOG endlessly (and stealing Gorgon checkpoints too coz of that extra exotic chance chest lol) to the pint it wasn’t long I was basically an expert on the raid, I could do everything he could and had his back at all time (aside from actually getting him kill with a rocket launcher lol and that tradition continued for a long time with others after him). Then the Crota raid arrived and that was one of the first ever attempts at Day 1 we had. Never worked out but we tried for hours and hours on end before giving up. However those hours we were there…..I can tell you I had all the holes in the first area memorised (and when D2 brought that raid back I still knew where those holes were!). Weekly reset became VOG and CE hard modes every week end on end smashed it.
Eventually I had to venture into PVP and honestly it was horrible! LOL. I’d not really played anything PVP related before so it was intimidating. I don’t have too many stories or memories to tell about it. But it was certainly a choice when Destiny made it that certain quests had to be done in PVP. I was a sucker for auto rifles. Over time in PVP I had to learn to try to get better not great but better. Soon I learnt to use Hand Cannon and particularly loved The Last Word paired with a sniper. It became my go to use. I also got helped by some very good PVP players. A little shout out Rozi and Alex for all those D1 trials carries. Legend both of you. Love ya fellas no mater where you are. You two are the sole reason I ever persistent with PVP even in D2 lol. Oh I still dislike Destiny PVP but I have improved, doesn’t mean I’ll venture into other PVP games lol. At least not like this!.
House of Wolves and Taken King were the next two story arcs in 2015 for Destiny and both were amazing in their own way. Learning more about the Fallen and Queen Mara after she and her brother Uldren were only in the base Destiny briefly. And the mini version that wasn’t a raid Prison of Elders became a thing to grind ad it was fun. One of my friends at the time had managed to learn from others on how to sneak into the new areas that was part of the HOW expansion and helped me sneak into one of the areas. We didn’t do anything bar look around and poke to see if we could uncover secrets. Of course when others were doing it Bungie apparently warned people they could get banned for finding a hidden ghost. We did but didn’t touch it because we didn’t wanna get in trouble lol. POE was I guess a mini raid / dungeon PVE thing outside of athe usual story strike Fire team and it was fun. Pure chaos fun. We certainly meted and made Variks’s legendary comments useful outside of Destiny as referenced. Level 35 was Skolas Finale boss. Great times great strategy to work out how to handle him and then someone figured out the Sword block so you don’t die over time from the poison.
To be continued….