Destiny is a game with strong lore that does a poor job of presenting it to players. Though Bungie vastly improved the game's story elements in The Taken King and Rise of Iron, it's with Destiny 2 where the developer is looking to make it's biggest strides yet. Featuring a full-fledged campaign, Adventures that tell their own sidestory and new lore items, the story team in Bellevue, Washington have had their hands busy. We got to sit down the Matthew Ward and Jason Harris, members of the Story and Cinematics team to discuss Destiny 2's plot.

There is one final note to touch on. Destiny 2 has made the same mistake as its predecessor. Introducing a new expansion has now locked out many Guardians from participating in some of the easier end-game content, and if those Guardians don’t pay up, too bad. It perfectly sums up the open arms of the Destiny franchise, while only having room to hold so many. Much like the Infinite Forest, Destiny 2 looks to be in a constant state of flux and can’t quite figure out the right simulation.

At the time of this writing, Guided Games is still in beta for Leviathan and with good reason, which will be discussed in a moment. The third week due to everyone having a life outside of video games, even fewer people could make it which meant it wasn’t happening with the group that we had been trying to attempt Leviathan with. Of my own volition I was determined to complete this dang raid. I turned back to Destinylfg.net and what I found was a pattern seen in Destiny’s community all gaming communities for far too long — elitism. Before reading any further, go to Destinylfg.net right now and put the search to the Leviathan Raid either LFG or LFM…OK done? Did something stand out? Was it that most people searching said something along the lines of "LFG must be 305 PL quick run must know what to do" This will be the most common thing seen on this website: elitists looking for other elitists to run with and the challenge of Leviathan doesn’t help in the slightest. This not only deterred me, a Destiny vet, but probably deters many new guardians as well. Why even try the raid if those who want to run it only want the best of the best? While I know Sherpas exist (people who will take the time to run new folks through the raid) — I’ve even run in a few Sherpa groups myself — they are few and far between. Only eleven percent of Destiny 2 players have completed Leviathan and I don’t see that number climbing much faster, but only time will tell. When Destiny 2 launched around fifty percent of players in the first Destiny had completed some sort of raid content, which was after a three-year period with the game. Where does this leave Leviathan then? Not looking good and it doesn’t speak well to PvE endgame content for the future of Destiny 2.

Successfully killing the elite unit will reward players with a key, which can then be used to open the sector’s treasure chest. Filled with valuable loot, there’s always a good reason to go poking around Lost Sectors.

Including all content from Curse of Osiris in the base game might have helped ease some of the end-game pains that the launch brought with it. It’s not too much more to do, but it might have smoothed over a few wrinkles by including that extra content. It would also have made the loot pool larger; maybe Guardians wouldn’t be as frustrated at the limited item sets, lackluster exotics and other cosmetics. Giving more isn’t always the best idea, but in this case, it could have been.

Playing Destiny 2 with others is what makes the game so enjoyable. Destiny 2 may have widened the pool, but everyone must stay in their lanes. Seeing a game like FFXIV pull off cross-play so effortlessly makes one wonder why Bungie couldn’t pull this same move. Part of it has to do with licensing agreements, but dividing Guardians is a sure way to push those same Guardians out. If a group of friends wants to play Destiny 2 together, but they all have different platforms, then why should they play at all? Much of the content in Destiny 2 is built on the idea of social play, even more so than Destiny, it just comes with limiters. Those limits are hurting Destiny 2.

[Jason Harris]: It’s really an amazing narrative opportunity to strip away the powers. It’s the tried and true, "is Superman really Superman without his powers," scenario. If given the opportunity, we would have loved to do more missions without players having their Light, but that is not the case. I looked at it as nothing more than a great story opportunity.

Where does Destiny 2 go from here? Curse of Osiris, much like previous Destiny 2 Rite of the Nine DLCs before it, is more of the same. It can barely hold a spotlight on Osiris, who’s supposed to be one of the most important Guardians and it leaves more questions than it answers. Destiny 2 might be in more of a state of flux than Destiny. It wants to appeal to everyone. Casting such a wide net means knots, holes and all sorts of other problems.