Still, the EDZ is a gorgeous area to explore, and more visually impressive than the vast majority of Destiny’s worlds with only Venus giving the EDZ a run for its money. While its size may be a bit deceptive, what matters more is if there’s enough content to make exploration worthwhile.

Love it or Cold Comfort Rocket launcher hate it, Destiny is addicting. It has some of the best first person shooting mechanics available, and while the campaign structure is limited, its drive for loot is exciting. Unfortunately, if players ignore the Raids all together they will be left with an unfortunate experience that’s marred by a virtually non-existent plot. Regardless, Destiny is a fun game to play with friends, having you dig through hours of dungeons and lengthy strikes. There’s a lot for Bungie to do (an actual story would be nice, more varied locations for missions and less repetitive mission tasks), but they have established something to build off of that will hopefully be expanded upon in future iterations.

Humanity isn’t the only thing occupying the wide-open galaxy; there are the other two races as well. The Exos are powered by the light and that seems to be a living source. Besides humanity fighting its war there are the Awoken and Exo, both related to humanity while not being human. Equally as important to the scope of it all. Without getting into the nitty-gritty of these two races, just know that Bungie does plan on telling their stories eventually. The other major tie in for these two races is all the other high sci-fantasy space stuff going on. Without getting into space dragons (because they exist), there are also things in this universe the Destiny community has yet to encounter, unless counting Xur. Which brings this to the Nine. The Nine have been a known part of Destiny since the game's release, but the only contact anyone has had with them is strictly through Xur, an agent of the Nine. With Destiny 2 taking us to Titan, players just might get closer than ever before to this elusive group of who knows what (hint space dragons). Doing some digging, it's known the Nine occupy either Europa, a moon of Jupiter, or Titan, one of the new locals in Destiny 2, a moon of Saturn.

The Last City isn’t the only thing out there. One of my first memories of Destiny is one of the story missions, the name of which escapes me at the moment. In this particular mission, after activating some beacons, your Ghost makes the comment of things deeper out in the universe, things unseen and ancient. While this may have been a reference to Crota at the time or even Oryx, it still felt as if Bungie was hinting at a lot up its sleeve. When really digging into the Destiny Grimoire or even just playing the game, it’s obvious humans expanded across the stars at rapid pace. Destiny 2 is following in suit, with the three new locations Titan, Nessas and Io they couldn’t be digging the heels more into lore. These are spaces that will show off how humanity took control of their…Destiny. The Traveler brought with it the Golden Age and Destiny 2 seems to want to show just what that means.

Who would have ever thought a mobile game would end up on my list? As a big fan of the Hitman franchise since its second iteration, when it was announced that Square Enix Montreal would be working on a mobile game in the same universe, I was no doubt concerned. To my surprise, it ended up being one of the best games of the year. It takes the scenarios we’ve come to love in the full-fledged stealth games and creates bite-sized puzzles. There’s no game on my Nexus 5 that I played more of this year, trying to master each mission, while doing so with the least amount of turns or picking up the optional briefcase. While it’s not what I hope the series will move towards in the future, it is a nice side activity that will distract you for a couple minutes at a time.

With Destiny 2 is quickly approaching, everyone going in should have a decent understanding of the plot. Maybe you played through the first game and don’t remember what happened or decided to skip it entirely; well we have a general breakdown of what happened previously on Destiny. Before getting into events that transpired throughout the course of the relatively short-storied campaign, let's give a little bit of background regarding the world.

Destiny starts off as you’re resurrected by a Ghost in the desolate ruins of Old Russia. Things aren’t looking great as there are Fallen roaming around and you need to make it to civilization. Finding a ship, you make your way the Last City where you meet a whole network of faces, including Ikora, Zavala, Cayde-6, and The Speaker, who now represents the Traveler. They instruct you to go back to Earth and search the Cosmodrone in which you find the Hive holding out underground in the abandoned subway system. Seeing as these beings usually reside on the Moon, you’re tasked to travel outside of the atmosphere and investigate.

What does relationship mean for lore though? Of course, the actual relationship aspect of Destiny is there, but it’s always been there. Destiny 2 is not only creating worlds, though, it’s actually telling stories within those worlds. The people that inhabit these spaces are important and Bungie seems to be doing everything to make the player care about them. From the looks of interaction with those around you while traversing the many environments Destiny 2 has to offer, the aspect of relationship is everywhere. Zavala giving command to the player and other NPCs around him. It creates a sense of urgency immediately invoking a compassion that only comes from feeling connected to others. Then there is the EDZ a new area for players to call home. The people they were protecting have started forming communities here. Actively participating in these places will create a more grounded sense of community. It’s the reason WoW cities felt so lived in; the people that inhabit these spaces are going about their daily lives. It isn’t about, go out, kill aliens, return. It feels like being the Pavlovian dog waiting for the treat. None of that seems to be in Destiny 2.