Destiny 2 Gameplay And Performance Review: A PC Gamer's Delight
Destiny 2 The Traveler's Light Shines on PC
Destiny 2 recently arrived on the PC, following its successful console launch on September 6 of this year. The original installment in the franchise was a console-exclusive title, despite petitions and pleading from PC gamers to port the title over to Windows. That makes Destiny 2 the first time PC gamers get to use their inner-Guardian to shoot, Sparrow-ride, and loot their way through Bungie’s open-word, action-RPG franchise.
In Destiny 2, you are a “Guardian”, a mortal being who has been granted incredible abilities after receiving the Traveler’s Light. Choosing from three distinct class types, your task is to restore and protect Earth’s last safe city from hordes of alien races. To do this you must travel to distant planets and moons within the shared multiplayer world.
And it’s all good for PC Gamers. Destiny 2 brings an expanded PvE experience and some key changes to the PvP side of things. Visually the game receives the full PC treatment with support for HDR monitors, 4K UHD resolutions, an expansive list of graphics settings to play with and more. To make this possible Bungie updated the engine from the original game, added support for more advanced rendering technology, and also significantly spruced up the visuals. This may be why there isn't much from the old Destiny that can be re-visited or carried over to Destiny 2, something the developers stated would be a part of the growing Destiny franchise back before the original launched.
Suit-up Guardian, we have some alien butt to kick.
Ultimately, what we have here is a gorgeous, action-packed, socially-engaging, clean-slate for both console and PC players. New and old players can expect a short but epic 7 - 9 hour story campaign. It serves as a long tutorial of sorts, while the true scope of the game and the majority of its features only become available upon completing the story missions. From there, much like the original, players can engage in a variety of mission types either solo or with friends. Doing so will yield all sorts of loot for your character so you may increase their fighting prowess and Power Level. However, Destiny 2 offers more NPC interaction on various PvE missions than the original and has a greater emphasis on exploration. We also get an expanded Clan system with benefits, new sub-classes for characters, and more. But before we dive in…
Our Destiny 2 Test Rig
Our Destiny 2 test PC is built around an Intel X99 desktop platform. We have an Intel Core i7-5960X CPU installed to an ASUS X99-Deluxe motherboard and equipped with a 16GB kit of Corsair Dominator Platinum 3000MHz DDR4 memory. An up-to-date version of Windows 10 is installed on a 512GB Samsung 850 EVO SSD and our game files were installed on a 240GB Corsair MP500 NVME M.2 SSD.
In the following pages, we'll give our thoughts on Destiny 2's heavily story-driven campaign and then we'll cover some of the game-play characteristics and features for the wider open-world before diving into the visuals and benchmark numbers. Lets get to it, Guardian!
