Faced with the profusion of service games in recent years, a question is forming on many lips, particularly concerning Destiny.
Available since 2017, Destiny 2 has become one of the flagship titles of the "service game" genre. Behind this term hide games that regularly benefit from additional content, free or not, and offer players the possibility of continuing a scenario initiated sometimes several months or years ago.
If many titles have broken their teeth in the exercise - we remember in particular Anthem, which did not manage to keep its roadmap, but also Marvel's Avengers, whose sales considered average very quickly sounded the death knell - Bungie has managed the feat of imposing this concept on as many people as possible and offering one of the most popular games of recent years.
However, who says long-term exploitation also says absolute necessity not to lose players, and even to recruit more. This is precisely the subject of our article: Can Destiny 2 be started in 2022, and above all, in what form?
What does Bungie offer?
A few days ago the expansion The Witch Queen arrived, while the initial title will soon celebrate its five years of existence. This fourth expansion is important in more ways than one and provides many answers to questions that players have been asking since the very first Destiny (launched in 2014).
In fact, how to ensure that players who start the adventure today manage to find themselves in the convoluted scenario of the franchise? It's all the studio's balancing act, which sought to put things back in order when the game went free-to-play in 2019.
With New Light, the newly arrived player is invited to understand the main lines of the game universe through a tutorial specially designed for the occasion, but which in fact takes up the basics of that of the first opus. Arrived in an abandoned Russia, you are told that you are a Guardian awakened by a giant sphere with the help of a Spectre, a small robotic creature that will assist you in your adventures.
But once the tutorial is complete, depending on the expansions and season passes purchased, little is done to retain newcomers.
Content too difficult to summarize?
Perhaps you learned about Destiny 2 through the game's first trailer, featuring what is known as the Red War. Well today, none of that is in play. Bungie preserved the weight of its game by scrapping a number of old elements - most recently part of the Forsaken expansion, dating back to 2018.
In 2022, when you play Destiny 2, you are invited to start the scenario of The Witch Queen and the Season of the Reborn, without having all the keys to understand these two major contents.
If Bungie has made real efforts for two years to promote understanding of its scenario, with a lot of cutscenes, in particular, nothing has been specifically developed to make the title more accessible. A problem that the studio does not seem to be aware of, as evidenced by the response of Blake Battle, project manager, to our question on the subject:
“The narrative themes addressed in The Witch Queen are central to the Destiny universe, and were written and structured as a great integration into the story for new players. »
But if playing The Witch Queen's campaign is her "number one tip," it's clear, having finished with it and even as a player who has been attentive to the franchise since its inception, that this statement is false.
What possible avenues?
Beyond the usual advice where a new player will be offered to first take an interest in the Destiny universe before playing it - Bungie does not offer anything specifically in this direction, so you have to go to YouTube - we could also imagine some notable tracks to facilitate access to Destiny 2.
For the studio, these tracks are not the easiest to achieve, but several players suggest a vast project to be carried out on the narration in the introductory sequence, and which would allow the newcomer to be truly involved in this rich universe. Moreover, this is undoubtedly where the problem lies: the player never receives a little tip to recontextualize certain narrative elements of the extension; a step in this direction would therefore obviously be welcome.
Destiny is a strong license, with an incredible universe, if you are interested in it. However, the studio does not particularly help neophytes to do so, so it is difficult to convince the most reluctant to get started. If the richness of its gameplay is reflected in The Witch Queen, and this, regardless of the profile of the players, there is still a lot to do for the hype to continue when the two other expansions are released, to come by 2024.
