Despite a common consensus online that Destiny 2 is lacking content, Destiny 1 and its DLC are often seen as having moderately good and quality content; of course, three years of refinement and content can make even the worst game fun. This review might be more biased than usual considering I have quite the history with this game, but considering I review things, there’s always going to be some bias (and spoilers, don’t forget about spoilers).

Destiny was far from a flop when it came out, in fact it made over 325 million dollars in the first week alone. However, critical backlash caused a bunch of changes with the gameplay and lackluster story. The vanilla game, a term for the original version of the game, had the last guardians of Earth being introduced into a world filled with the Fallen alien scavengers, ritualistic Hive, time shifting Vex, and war mongering Cabal. The game had a couple side missions, but most of the story mode was based on scanning for data and clearing out enemy strongholds. Eventually it culminated in a battle in the birthplace of the Vex. After that, the story stopped and the endgame began. A raid was introduced for the Vex, with complex mechanics and puzzles, setting the foundation for many raids to come.

The first two dlc’s were rather small, but introduced a new raid and a horde mode called The Prison of Elders. The first dlc, “The Dark Below”, had our guardians taking on the forces of the hive god Crota: Son of Oryx, but lacked much content and had an admittedly broken raid. House of Wolves, the second dlc, had much more content, but lacked an interesting villain or raid due to the prison of elders taking center focus. Both were mediocre, but helped set up some more world building for the reef and hive.

The third dlc, “The Taken King”, was when the game finally started to reach its peak. Taking place after the dark below, you face Crota’s father, Oryx: The Taken King, and his army of interdimensional slaves. It featured a multitude of new gameplay changes, a comprehensible villain, and a lengthy raid. It was amazing to fight for a real and understandable cause, but I felt like the Taken enemies became a crutch for new content.

As I’ve described it, Destiny seems to be a mediocre game, but I’ve left out my favorite expansion which will have its own review to describe what made it great, despite being shorter than “The Taken King”. Also, the final rating for Destiny Complete Edition will be coming with it.

-Ethan Clark