The State of Destiny 2 Free-to-Play in 2024

I played through the "New Light" experience on a new account in order to review the state of the game from the perspective of a new player (and a free-to-play player). It was... very interesting. Within the past year Destiny has updated its new player experience with some nice new features like Guardian Ranks, but it still lacks polish and fails to explain a lot of super important things that EVERY new player needs to know. So overall, is the Free-to-Play (F2P) experience any good? I shared my opinion in the video, but I'd also be interested in hearing your thoughts below. Thanks for watching

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[adampatterson]

When Destiny first came out you had story missions, and there were lots of hidden things to investigate. Those were the days.

[Bellzos]

Destiny is one of those games where you absolutely NEED a friend that is willing to walk you through everything. The game relies heavy on its community to guide new players rather than investing into having a decent new player experience.

[Dennyh]

The question mark enemies were amazing in D1 when coming across them, it made you want to get higher power gear to be able to go back and kill them later.

[lilcxxj]

I am a returning player introducing my fiancé to Destiny 2 for the first time and this video is EXTREMELY ACCURATE!!! A lot of our own sentiments were voiced during this video. From the story feeling very disjointed for a new light (I explained to her who Cayde was and after doing the mission that included him she was just like "Well that sucks I didn't even get to know him and he's just dead" and the lack of telling us how important guardian rank was. After watching a different video when searching YT for "what to do as a new player in Destiny 2 f2p" we were like "Ohhh that's really useful actually, why wasn't that more obvious??". As well as what the heck artifacts were. (They SHOULD be introduced with the battle pass or something)Also, I don't know if we missed it but WE think they never told you how to get your mount out. We had to Google it. AND WHY did they omit the information on ENERGY WEAPONS it's such useful info and it used to be apart of the original Red War tutorial. I love how thorough you were in this experiment. You've earned a sub for me for this great, honest and unbiased take on the current new player experience.

[DJET]

New light experience will never feel right without the earlier campaigns imo

[dranek]

As a newer player, it’s incredibly confusing to start this game. I couldn’t have done it without help from friends who have been playing for a while.

[budgethornet]

I knew the game went through changes but I didn’t realise it was this significant. I remember playing it at release. It was designed specifically for new players that the OG’s from the original were annoyed. It’s crazy that those very friendly and narrative based missions are now gone.
And now turns out the DLC I purchased but never played is now unplayable.

[ISyphonHp]

I remember when not only was the opening story more coherent and fun (got ship by finding it and escaping last second), but also had red war as a very good story to open with for tension

[Rebelord]

This has always been my biggest challenges about trying to be a casual player as a Dad. Everytime I come back to the game something more confusing an unexplained comes up and recommendations are all over the place. A linear presentation for campaign as at least an option would be great.

[naofumi--]

I will say this, the Riskrunner tutorial room did actually do well to show its power to new players. My 2 friends who are completely new to destiny came into this room and were shown the power of the exotic without needing to take damage on purpose

[acaringxSMPRx]

I’m about a week into playing destiny 2 for the for first time and you’ve hit pretty much every issue I ran into. So many unexplained features and countless times when I started feeling like I understood what was happening just to have that story cut short because the character isn’t alive anymore or the newest expansion has changed the story. I only now know what artifact level is because of your video.

[FiddleOfGold]

One of the things that constantly bug me are the popups that do NOT go away until you do a specific thing...I have had them on the screen through entire strike missions...

[AlejandroRealEstateTycoon]

I love this game with a burning passion but every time I watch a “new light experience” video, I can’t help but think that all my friends are right when they say destiny 2 is garbage. How is this possibly going to get people interested in the game? Buggy, no true guidance on enemy types, build crafting, etc. It’s honestly sad to see. Especially considering that bungie is catering to “newer” players with their easy to play content. It’s getting harder and harder to stand by this game.

[awkwrdpanduh]

New lights would’ve had a better interaction if Red War and Forsaken was kept in the game

[macmanko]

the one thing that pushed me far from Destiny was a content purge. i bought Destiny with its all packs around month-two before New Light came out and after month or two I was told that all my expansions all exotics everything i bought and didnt make in time to unlock cause i was new player will be erased... It was rly frustrating, but I'm thinking now to come totally full ftp while waiting for First Descendant or project LLL

[horrorpleb]

I never really considered how awful it was for new lights until the dares of eternity incident that happened a while back.
Back then I never put much attention into the new lights since I was still doing end game content.
I mean, playing the red war, osiris and the warmind DLC was more important to me and when it got vaulted I focused on what was available to me.
Being a veteran can have its flaws, means you sort of become blind to the reality that new lights don't get to experience the same stuff as us veterans because we've already gotten so far into the endgame content so we know what we're doing.
And usually we think "Well if we can get this far then the new lights will have no problem following."

The dares of eternity incident put that perspective out of the window, I realised just how bad it was when new lights were forced into dares and the whole community had to band together to help the blueberries.
I definitely tried to help as many as possible and once bungie resolved the problem I began to help some of the new lights in the cosmodrome and.. wow... it was much worse than I imagined, I played with some and asked them questions and they didn't really know anything about the director menu (i dont mention guardian ranks because this was before lightfall came out) or what to do next, the game barely even gave them a direction as to what to do, its like bungie expected them to open up the menu and go to the quest category.
I had to literally guide them myself and while it was tedious since I barely knew what the new light quests were at the time since I had never once touched them, eventually I memorised them and thats not even the worst part.

So parkour.. lets discuss that, naturally hunters have the easiest jump mechanic, just press A or Space if you're on PC and you'll jump, press A again and you'll double jump.
Very simple for new lights.
Here's the issue, if you choose a warlock naturally you'll think it'll be easy since you've seen your friends float in the air, but for new lights they don't know anything about this, so I guided some through the riskrunner mission and when we got to the parkour section... it was a rollercoaster, every warlock new light I met could not even make the first jump because they didn't know how the warlock jump even worked (I don't blame them either because bungie actually suck at explaining the jump mechanic in detail)
It did take a while since I had to talk about timing the jump but I eventually helped a couple of warlock new lights through the quest, at that point I felt like I was trying to do bungie's job for them since bungie clearly didn't put enough effort into explaining each of the classes abilities in detail.

I mean.. jumping? Like thats the most used mechanic in destiny 2 and here I see new lights struggle because bungie can't even explain it properly to them.

Basically all of this is to show that even with every new update given to new lights, bungie just can't get it right because they're so used to the veteran community that they have that they disregard the new lights so easily as well.
This is incredibly sad since my actions are mere proof that the guide doesn't always work and its easier to have someone guide you through the tutorials rather than read things.

Quick message to every veteran: Some of you won't care and thats fine, I understand that many do hate new lights and I've encountered haters, I have no issues with that because even I used to despise them, but for those who feel they wanna do some good, help the new lights, they are confused blueberries because bungie won't teach them how to walk before running.

On a sidenote, removing the red war campaign was the biggest mistake bungie ever made, it was literally a whole tutorial put into a massive story, the red war needs to come back, it literally is more helpful than the new light quests.

[tompramanaaccount]

I still think a f2p/new light players needs their own campaign like in y3 Red War + CoO + Warmind. Those stories might not be perfect and confusing by some, but it was a perfect length to make new lights understand the basic of the game at the end of those 3 campaigns. With some tweaking and all, Red War alone could be a better experience to introduce light subclasses for new players, plus they can add legendary campaign for it so those players can also have a weekly pinnacle/loot grind every week.

[Icecreambutwith]

I remember when I started playing last year, I was so confused after the guardian rises quest. I had to get so much help from my dad who has played the game since destiny 1. But after getting all the help, gotta say one of the favorite games right now. So to all the new lights out there, push through it and you'll have a blast!

[jesse]

My first time playing destiny 2 was only a year ago when my friends told me it was like playing Halo and it even had the Magnum from the 1st Halo in it. I was pretty happy once I got it. The only thing I'm missing is the Covenant and Flood 😮‍💨

[ivalbremore]

no way after everything this guy says he gives it a A-