Bungie's recent showcase of Destiny 2's upcoming Lightfall expansion was incredibly enticing, showing off a new Darkness subclass called Strand, a cyberpunk-like city set on Neptune, and a frightening new encounter with an old enemy. Indeed, the showcase showed fans a lot of what's to come but also covered important information for anyone who has yet to dive into the game.
It's no secret that Destiny 2 is incredibly popular, but especially with content like Vanilla and Forsaken missing, it can be very confusing to step into now. Combine this with some of the game's grind intensive mechanics and heavy use of hyper-specific sci-fi terminology, and it's understandable why Destiny 2 may not exactly be welcoming to newcomers. Bungie is dedicated to changing that.
Alongside the release of Lightfall comes Guardian Ranks, a new system designed to walk players through the various mechanics and such of the game. Doing so will also give the player a level indicator, meant to showcase the level of mastery someone has over the game's various systems, and this means players can form groups with similarly experienced players, know who may need a little extra help in their fireteam, and more. While this makes the game's system more user-friendly, a lot of is also up to the Bungie community to make sure new players are welcomed.
To that effect, there are a couple of new quality of life features coming to the game as well. A new loadout manager will also newcomers and veterans to better manage their in-game loadouts, while there is also an in-game LFG system called the Fireteam Finder, which will be able to improve the social and raid experiences for Destiny 2 veterans and newcomers. Furthermore, this is also accentuated with a new matched based Commendations system, which lets players leave feedback through a series of cards to highlight what they did well and what could be improved.
As an example, there is a Selfless card for those who help other Destiny 2 players, while there is a Heroic card for helping save the team from defeat. All in all, it seems Destiny 2 is aiming to improve the newcomer experience as it also prepares for its next big step, when Lightfall releases in February 2023.
Destiny 2 is available now for PC, PS4, PS5, Stadia, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
