No looter shooter comes close to Destiny 2. Believe me, I’ve spent years trying to find one.
The Division and Remnant are too different. Borderlands 4 doesn’t have the same mystique. Outriders is nowhere near good enough. And Warframe isn’t exactly a looter shooter (one of the few things the game isn’t).
Over the years, several friends have asked me if Destiny 2 is worth picking up. The answer was always a long sigh and a weary “yes, but…,” with each year adding a lot more to the “but” column than to the “yes” side.
Destiny 2’s final update, Monument of Triumph, is finally changing that answer to a resounding yes—and all the game had to do to get there was die a slow, painful, perfectly avoidable death.
Monument of Triumph is a love letter to the franchise and its guardians, implementing fan feedback from years past and pushing the game to unforeseen heights. It’s clear the team put a lot of care into it, more worried about a lasting legacy than arbitrary metrics. The astonishing things one can do with a little overdelivery.
The game’s last content update undoes nearly every unpopular decision from The Edge of Fate (and there are many). It’s almost too good to be true. “I kind of feel like a dog being allowed to eat all the chocolate it wants before it gets put down,” as one fan so eloquently put it. It’s indisputable evidence that the team was, in fact, listening and jamming, to borrow from community manager Dylan “dmg_04” Gafner’s lexicon.
Six months ago, this update might have saved Destiny 2.
At the very least, it would have given Bungie some much-needed breathing room to regain its footing. It would show guardians the studio can understand feedback and implement meaningful changes, even if it meant walking back costly but unwanted elements like the Portal.
More importantly, it would have kindled some hope in a community that desperately needed it. In large part, fans were apathetic at best toward Destiny 2. Some changes in The Edge of Fate, like the Portal, were already deemed a bad idea before release, and the studio’s silence through its lowest point only made matters worse. It doesn’t help that over 10 years ago, the studio already knew the Portal was a bad idea, as showcased in an old GDC talk—yet somehow, it came back from the dead as if fueled by Dark Ether.
With Monument of Triumph, almost any activity in the game will have worthwhile loot. Shooting aliens on Nessus can be as rewarding as a dungeon. Pick any activity you want, and odds are you’ll come out with something shiny and powerful for your effort. And it’s not like Destiny 2 has a shortage of things to do once you take them out of the Portal’s streaming app-esque interface. Add to that the game’s unique environments and unparalleled gunplay, and that’s a winning combination.
New players don’t need to browse an arcane library of DLC to decide what they want, either. The Destiny 2 Collection will contain every piece of content available in the game with a single purchase. Buy it, install it, shoot aliens, get loot. That’s about as seamless as it gets for D2, if you leave out its overwhelming new player experience.
The truth is, Destiny 2 rarely struggled with the “shooter” part, but the “looter” was always Bungie’s biggest challenge. The studio finally cracked it, unencumbered by business acronyms and engagement numbers. Better late than never, I suppose.
Monument of Triumph isn’t even out yet, but players are already flocking to Destiny 2 in expectation of what’s next. Guardians didn’t necessarily lose faith in Destiny, but they did lose faith in Bungie over the studio’s handling of the game, especially after The Edge of Fate. Leadership was willing to sacrifice excellence at the altar of engagement, basing decisions on FOMO, drip-feeding, and the Sacrosanct Grind. Unsurprisingly, it wasn’t exactly a success.
In hindsight, Destiny 2 had to be really special to survive as many disasters as it did over its long lifespan, including the removal of paid content and whatever Lightfall was. A worse title would have been buried three or four catastrophes ago.
On the game’s deathbed, Bungie’s reverse Midas touch is out of the way. There won’t be any new, potentially disruptive systems like the Portal or the need to spend another $100 next year. No FOMO or subversive tactics to persuade you to log in every week. (What if Zavala sells Mint Retrograde next reset?)
This means I can finally stop trying to find a replacement for Destiny 2. In a way, it’ll be like Warframe to me: a game I can always come back to, pick back right where I left off, and feel at home in. If I’m lucky, I’ll get enough friends to run a raid or a dungeon, reminiscing about old memories while making new ones. The game hasn’t truly died; if anything, Monument of Triumph will give it some new life, late as it may be.
On June 9, Destiny 2 will be by far the best looter shooter on the market for me. It’s a shame it cost everything.
