Franchise Friday: A Guardian’s Journey

Welcome to the first of many Franchise Friday blog posts. If you haven’t already seen, Franchise Friday is a new series launching today on my blog. You can find out more about it in the reveal post here.

Without further ado lets jump in.

Now, this particular franchise has been in the news lately due to a split between two publishers. This is the split between Activision and Bungie. Now while it looked like it was on the cards to happen in the near future, I don’t believe that many people expected it to happen when it did.

Of course, this first Franchise Friday is based around the game Destiny.

The first time I heard about Destiny I was a little unsure about it but my partner, on the other hand, was really excited about it and had it pre-ordered for release day. Release day came and needless to say, I didn’t really hear much from my partner for those first few days while he was playing Destiny alongside his friends. I did spend some time watching him play and slowly the game grew on me.

About a week after the games release while my partner was at work I jumped onto Destiny for the first time. I created my Guardian and off I went to explore the game.  I was hooked. I loved the game and everything about it. Although I’m not the greatest at first-person shooter games I managed to play through the majority of the game on my own with no problems. Then that’s where my first real problem occurred.

I was too scared to reach out to other people to do some of the weekly events and missions where you ideally needed four people. I did try to attempt them on my own but realized that it would be a little more difficult than I first thought. While yes I had a few friends who played Destiny, it was very rare that they would be online when I was.

This was where I stopped playing Destiny. It wasn’t because I had lost interest in the game I just had to overcome my problem.

That being said when I purchased my own Xbox One, Destiny was one of the first games I picked up so I could finally catch up and play with friends. And eventually, after a lot of grinding, failing and winning at times as well I caught up and completed everything that I could. I found myself jumping on here and there doing more of the weekly events but eventually, that started to dwindle in how often I would do so.

Fast forward to the release day of Destiny 2.

I was actually away on a course for work on the day of release but I got an earlier train so I could run into the GAME around the corner from where my course was being held to pick up a copy of the game. This time I was more excited for the sequel than my partner and I’d been following a lot of the development in the run-up to its release.

As I was sat in my course a message flagged up on my phone from my partner. It read along the lines of “can you pick up an extra copy of Destiny 2.” He’d suddenly had a change of heart after hearing some great things from friends who had picked the game up at midnight.  Needless to say, I managed to make it back to GAME just in time to grab the second copy. I had opted for a physical copy as it was cheaper than the digital version but somehow ended up getting the original season pass as well when I grabbed the second copy of the game.

I had a vague idea what to expect and even had a small clan/fireteam with friends ready to tackle the new game. I had so much fun playing through the main story and it didn’t take me too long to complete it unlike with the original Destiny game. Ultimately I fell in love with the world of Destiny all over again.

“Remember: there are two of you. The Fireteam that shoots together stays together!” —Cayde-6

While I’ve thoroughly enjoyed Destiny 2 and my experience with the game, all the grinding that I’ve done and the emotional rollercoasters that have been thrown in here and there,  there has been one thing that I say has been a bit concern of mine is how the current downloadable content has been distributed. The additional content has been spot on and I can not fault it at all but it is more to do with the different “season passes.”  (In all honesty that could be an entirely separate post on its own.)  While yes there’s a very good reason that the downloadable content is set at that price the more recent releases (and not just for Destiny 2) I’ve waited until they’ve gone on sale before picking them up. I  hope that this is something that is looked into more in the future.

I have to say before I round this post off that I have really enjoyed Destiny 2 a lot more than I thought I would.  I’ve still got a lot to learn when it comes to Gambit and I need to stop running out and instantly dying but I’m sure that will come in time. However, with Bungie and Activision now parting ways, I’m interested to see how the future of the Destiny franchise will pan out and I’m sure the split between the two publishers will be a positive thing for Bungie in the long run.

Well, that’s it for the first Franchise Friday. I hope you’ve enjoyed it as much as I had fun writing about it. I’d love to hear what you think about the new series and of course your experiences with the Destiny franchise!

Don’t forget to look out for the next Franchise Friday next month!