Beta Details

Let’s get right into one of the most important topics, and that’s the impending beta! As of Thursday, July 13 the Destiny 2 beta was available to preload for anyone with early access. As many of you already know the beta kicks off for PS4 players on July 18 while Xbox One owners will get their chance to play on July 19. The open beta will begin on July 21 and the whole thing will finally be wrapping up on July 23.

If you’re one of the lucky ones who managed to snag early access either by pre-ordering or winning a code, you can download the entire file right now. It comes in at 15GB for PS4 and 12.8GB for Xbox players. If you’ve pre-ordered directly on your console of choice, you should be able to go in and search for ‘Destiny 2 Beta’ in order to start the download. If you pre-ordered through other means, you should have received a code to redeem on Bungie.net by now. Simply redeem the code to get your beta access code and access the beta file.

We’re sure everyone will be wanting to maximize their available playtime with the beta, so having the client downloaded and ready to go in advance is a good idea!

Another important detail regarding the beta is that Bungie commented in their This Week At Bungie update to keep in mind that this is indeed a test. They provided a list of possible issues that Guardians could face while playing during the beta period.

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Story and Sound Details

Over at IGN, they had a chance to sit down with Bungie to discuss their vision for the game’s story along with the sounds they are producing for the game. We’ve already shared our thoughts on the story details reveal and how Bungie are focusing on what it means to be a Guardian in a world without Light right over here. Needless to say, after the somewhat disjointed story that we had in vanilla Destiny, it’s great to see them placing such a heavy emphasis on story this time around along with keeping all of the lore in-game.

You can check out the video from IGN where they talk about perfecting the sounds in Destiny 2 here, complete with David Samuel providing more epic sound effects for us all.

PvP Details

While Bungie is keeping a tight lid on any further story details than we’ve known about for a little while, over on the PvP front there’s lots to discuss! We had a look at two brand new PvP maps, Endless Vale and Vostok. We got to see some of the changes being made to the returning Control Mode. And best of all, we got to see some glorious footage of the new subclasses in action, along with our first peek at Voidwalker gameplay and Nova Bomb.

The two new maps are quite promising, and look like they’ll accommodate the smaller 4v4 team sizes in Destiny 2 perfectly. Endless Vale was the first map revealed, and is set on Nessus. This Vex-modified world will play a role in the game’s campaign, as it’s the world where we will once again meet up with Cayde-6. Continuing the trend from the first game, it looks like we’ll be doing battle on maps based off many locations from the main game.

And apparently it won’t just be the new locales from Destiny 2’s worlds we’ll be facing off in, as Vostok sees us returning to Felwinter Peak! More specifically, the area right before the social hub where we squared off with the Fallen in the opening mission of Rise of Iron. Bungie has made some slight modifications to the layout, such as opening up a cave in the middle to allow for flanking routes between the objective points.

The other interesting bit of news to come out in regards to PvP is the changes to the fan favorite Control mode. In an effort to get us into the action quicker, the game will now begin with both ‘A’ and ‘C’ flags captured already, encouraging players to duke it out over ‘B’ much quicker. In addition, you no longer have to neutralize an enemy flag before capturing it. Instead, as soon as you step into a Control point, you will begin to capture it for your team. And unlike the original game, you won’t be able to capture a zone quicker if you have more than one Guardian at the flag. Capture rates are standardized across the board in Destiny 2. And finally, the games are being sped up substantially, as they now have an eight minute time limit.

Subclass Details

We got a glimpse at a bunch of new details in regards to the subclasses in the game this week as well. While we unfortunately didn’t get a peek at the Sentinel’s skill tree, we learned a bit more about the class. It would appear that when you activate the class super, the shield throw ability is tied to your grenade recharge, meaning it’s not spammable. Whether or not a class ability can modify this remains to be seen.

For the most part, it looks like the super will act much like the VoG relic dash. We all got confirmation once again that Ward of Dawn will be returning, and is activated by holding down the buttons for your super. One interesting addition is that the bubble will visually deteriorate as it takes damage in Destiny 2, giving players a clear indicator of how much longer it might last.

We also saw several gameplay clips, focusing on both of the revealed Titan subclasses and the Warlock as well, including our first look at the Voidwalker class. Blink is making a return and appears to be very similar to how it works in the original, with the player momentarily losing their HUD when it’s used. We also saw the revamped Scatter Grenade in action and got our first peek at Nova Bomb in-game. It appears to move more slowly and has a tracking feature, and when detonated it almost appeared as if it split into Axion Bolts. Unfortunately we didn’t get a chance to see the class melee in action to see if a lifesteal build is still a thing, but we’ll find out soon enough when the beta launches.

There was also a few more interesting things to note from the gameplay videos, including:

Roaming supers will now leave glowing footprints that match the subclass damage type, so the Sentinel will leave purple footprints and the Arcstrider will leave a blue trail
The Striker shoulder charge is no longer a one hit kill and it now uses up your melee charge as well
We noticed a Striker Titan with two Lightning Grenade charges, it’s still unclear where this comes from, possibly an as of yet unrevealed Exotic
The Warlock can now indeed fire weapons while gliding in the air
According to IGN, Nova Bomb can be detonated early by shooting at it
Shotguns now have precision damage!

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Closing Thoughts

That pretty much wraps up all of the new information that we found out this week. The week ahead should be packed with a lot more exciting news as well once we all finally get our hands on the beta. IGN will be continuing their month long coverage as well, with the following scheduled for next week:

July 18 – The beta goes live
July 19 – A closer look at combatants
July 20 – Peripherals
July 21 – Localization

It’s going to be awesome trying out all of the new subclasses for ourselves and finding out exactly how they play. Until next time, we’ll see you all in the BETA!