Destiny 2 Gameplay Trailer Released, PC Version to be on Blizzard Client

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Destiny 2 Gameplay Trailer Released, PC Version to be on Blizzard Client

You can get your first look at gameplay in Destiny 2 right here.

In a livestream event today, Bungie showed off a first look at gameplay from Destiny 2. There was not only a new trailer, but an hour-long stream as well. First up, here's the trailer:


The other interesting announcement for PC gamers was where you'll be able to acquire Destiny 2 when it launches in September. Rather then use Steam for distribution, Bungie chose to partner up with another Activision company - Blizzard.

When Destiny 2 launches for PC, it will be available exclusively through the Blizzard client. As you can see toward the end of the livestream embedded below, Blizzard President Mike Morhaime refers to it as "Battlenet," even though Blizzard dropped that branding from the service and the client in March [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/169891-Battle-net-Replaced-by-Blizzard-App]. It makes perfect sense for Bungie to turn to Blizzard for this service, as that company knows plenty about delivering large-scale multiplayer games, and it has the infrastructure already in place.


Destiny 2 is coming to PS4, and Xbox One on September 8. The PC version will be delayed a bit, but no one knows just how long we'll have to wait just yet. If you pre-order the game, you will get early access to its beta later this summer.

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[Eric the Orange]

woah, never thought Blizzard would put non blizzard games in their system. I mean I know Activison owns them both But blizzards "brand" has always remained separate from Activisons other properties.

 

[Worgen]

Well, guess I would be getting it since fuck blizzard.

 

[Saelune]

I want to pretend this means I wont get it cause "Fuck Blizzard"...but really, I wont be getting it cause "Fuck Destiny and Bungie".

 

[Kungfu_Teddybear]

Okay, did they now say that the PC version will be out on September 8th or did you add that to the article yourself? Because I've seen other sites report that the PC version doesn't have a set release date yet and will be out after the console versions.

 

[fix-the-spade]

woah, never thought Blizzard would put non blizzard games in their system. I mean I know Activison owns them both But blizzards "brand" has always remained separate from Activisons other properties.

I expect this is Vivendi trying to build up Blizzard Client into something like Origin and avoiding the Steam tax in future.

They need an Activision IP they can afford to take a risk with, it wouldn't surprise me if their end game is to release Call of Duty on Blizzard Client too. I'm sure this will go fine, the real question is will Destiny 2 be good enough to make it a success.

 

[King_Julian]

I havent used battle.net in many many years, back when i played WoW and i think it was called something else.

So tell me people, is this a good thing or bad thing? I like destiny and im getting it on pc either way but are there and downsides to it being on battle.net?

 

[Silk_Sk]

I havent used battle.net in many many years, back when i played WoW and i think it was called something else.

So tell me people, is this a good thing or bad thing? I like destiny and im getting it on pc either way but are there and downsides to it being on battle.net?

Not really. It was the very first game client, and it works very well for the few games that it hosts. It's just surprising that a non-Blizzard game is going to become available on it. Honestly, I never considered that this was even possible. The implications of other developers being able to release games for Battle.net/Blizzard app are...I don't know. This may not be a good thing in the long run, but then again, it mei.

 

[Hawki]

"Oh boy," thought I, as I got up this morning. "The Destiny livestram was held at 3am (Sydney time), but now I can get up and...see that apparently some dogs were run over. Huh."

Oh well, anyway:

I mean I know Activison owns them both But blizzards "brand" has always remained separate from Activisons other properties.

There's technically a precedent, in that Blizzard devs also worked with Bungie on Destiny after the game was launched. Specifically, it was those from the D3 team, the idea being that both Destiny and Diablo III launched to...mixed, reception, D3 was worked on further and 'redeemed', and the devs used their experience to fix Destiny. How one feels about Destiny and D3 aside, it is an interesting tidbit.

They need an Activision IP they can afford to take a risk with, it wouldn't surprise me if their end game is to release Call of Duty on Blizzard Client too. I'm sure this will go fine, the real question is will Destiny 2 be good enough to make it a success.

I wouldn't bank on Call of Duty. As in:

-The battle.net launcher (and Blizzard's catalogue right now) is more based on a set no. of games, each representing a different genre. StarCraft: Remastered will be intergrated, which means we'll have two RTS game listed, but hey, that's still a Blizz game. Call of Duty has an annual release cycle, so you wouldn't be able to fit it into the launcher without seriously overhauling it (which I hope doesn't happen).

-CoD has a history of launching on Steam, Destiny doesn't.

-Destiny 2 is a better fit for the launcher IMO - strong multiplayer focus, sci-fa setting, etc. Also, while a Destiny 3 is planned, Destiny 2 better ascribes to the concept of a core product that's built over time, rather than numerous separate ones. Blizz's games right now ascribe to the former, Call of Duty is mostly the latter.

Course, this is mainly a hope. I'd be happy for Destiny 2 to be on the launcher, because I think it 'fits' it much better, and I'd be happy to get Destiny characters in HotS for instance, or whatnot. Call of Duty, not so much.

So tell me people, is this a good thing or bad thing? I like destiny and im getting it on pc either way but are there and downsides to it being on battle.net?

On the consumer side of things, well, I used battle.net reguarly, and it's a pretty solid launcher. Intuitive, not obtrusive, easy to download, pretty solid - there's been a few times where the launcher has been screwed, but it's not a common occurrence. I guess the worst thing I could say about it is how ads work. E.g. I could click on the StarCraft II section, and see an ad in the center for something Hearthstone related. But the big "play" button is down the bottom all the same.

On the commercial side of things, people have pointed out that Activision is likely doing this because selling Destiny 2 on the app allows them to take a bigger cut of the products than they would on Steam. So, I guess that's good, if only because (hopefully) Bungie would see more of the profits as well. I suspect Blizzard has signed off on this because a) Destiny strikes me as a Blizzard-esque game), and b) allows cross-promotion. People who want to play Destiny 2 get the b.net launcher, see all these other games in said launcher, may decide to play/purchase said games, etc. I mean, maybe Destiny 2 is offerring competition with WoW, but from what I've seen/played, these games are very different MMOs.

So, now that's done, I get round to watching the trailer.

 

[Hawki]

So, watched the main trailer, and I have only one, very important thing to say...

CaydexIkora = Destiny's OTP. XD

Oh, and the gameplay looks fine. Vehicles are a nice touch. Course I still need to actually play Destiny 1 at some point...

 

[Tsun Tzu]

I...don't want other games on Battle.net.

That's weird, right? To not want Activision to further violate Blizzard? To vainly hold on to the demonstrably false notion that one of my last nostalgia devs haven't already been consumed by vast, uncaring, shitty corporate entities?

Yes? Ok.

And Bungie...I want to be excited for D2, but man, everything I've heard about Destiny being mishandled and Marty getting the axe...again, it feels like another childhood dream dev either starting to go or already well on its way down the proverbial drain.

I get that it makes sense for the corp to do this, but it just seems wrong.

I know. Childish. But eh.

 

[AzrealMaximillion]

woah, never thought Blizzard would put non blizzard games in their system. I mean I know Activison owns them both But blizzards "brand" has always remained separate from Activisons other properties.

I expect this is Vivendi trying to build up Blizzard Client into something like Origin and avoiding the Steam tax in future.

They need an Activision IP they can afford to take a risk with, it wouldn't surprise me if their end game is to release Call of Duty on Blizzard Client too. I'm sure this will go fine, the real question is will Destiny 2 be good enough to make it a success.

I'm all for this. With how bad Steam is with cheaters and how good Blizzard with dealing with them, Activision makes %30 more than expected off of PC and can assure a more secure game.

 

[Cold Shiny]

I'd like to take this time to thank all the millions of suckers who bought the beta(Destiny 1) and helped improve the game.

Your patronage is appreciated.

 

[RedDeadFred]

I...don't want other games on Battle.net.

That's weird, right? To not want Activision to further violate Blizzard? To vainly hold on to the demonstrably false notion that one of my last nostalgia devs haven't already been consumed by vast, uncaring, shitty corporate entities?

If it makes you feel any better, they've already done this themselves through Hearthstone.

OT: I hold the tiniest amount of hope that they'll actually ship a full game at launch this time. I'm 99% sure they'll just do the same thing as last time because why would you put a bunch of content in when you could just a quarter of a game for full price, but maybe, just maybe, they'll continue with the strange trend of sequels being surprisingly good.

It'll probably be shit though.

 

[Hawki]

So, based on what I've seen so far, quite like it.

Cinematic trailer is great. Good mix of action and narrative, lovely soundtrack, nice touch how Zavala's journey mimics the 'journey' of the Last City, as we go from hunter-gatherers, to classical architecture, to the City in itself. And child Amanda is cute, so there is that.

Gameplay trailer looks fun - good stakes, good sense of scale. Looks a bit slow, but maybe that's par for the course.

 

[RJ 17]

Activision confirmed new EA.

Diablo 3's coming out!
Activision: "Put in a real money Auction House."

WoW is our biggest cash-cow on subscription fees alone!
Activision: "Start selling cosmetics for real money."

Overwatch is the most highly anticipated FPS in a long time!
Activision: "Put in a gambling-based microtransaction system."

HotS is growing in popularity due to Riot's overconfidence!
Activision: "Change the loot system to be identical to OW's gambling-based microtransaction system. Oh yeah, and completely fuck over anyone who has already spent money on this game. :^)"

Look, I can't prove that Blizzard has implemented all of these greed-based business models due to Activision's "suggestions", all I can point to is that they didn't start implementing all of these greed-based business models until Activision took over merged with them.

 

[InflatableHippo]

I'm curious as to how many forms of gambling and Gacha type nickle and dimeing are going to be in this game. Seeing as how Overwatch went unopposed with its tactics I expect D2 to be even worse.

 

[Hawki]

Activision confirmed new EA.

Diablo 3's coming out!
Activision: "Put in a real money Auction House."

WoW is our biggest cash-cow on subscription fees alone!
Activision: "Start selling cosmetics for real money."

Overwatch is the most highly anticipated FPS in a long time!
Activision: "Put in a gambling-based microtransaction system."

HotS is growing in popularity due to Riot's overconfidence!
Activision: "Change the loot system to be identical to OW's gambling-based microtransaction system. Oh yeah, and completely fuck over anyone who has already spent money on this game. :^)"

Look, I can't prove that Blizzard has implemented all of these greed-based business models due to Activision's "suggestions", all I can point to is that they didn't start implementing all of these greed-based business models until Activision took over merged with them.

I think you're making a mountain out of a molehill. Let's go by these examples:

Diablo III: The real money auction house - can't comment on it too much, but black market trading existed prior to D3. To quote Jay Wilson:

"The auction house came out of the desire to legitimize third party trading so that players would stay in the game to do their trading rather than go to third party sites, and as a result reduce fraud, scams, spamming, and the profit in hacking the game, making dupes, etc. The problem is, of course, it over-legitimized trading. It made it too easy. I think we all know this by now and the consequences. We worried about these consequences ahead of time, but we thought the benefits would outweigh the downsides, and WoW?s AH seemed like a good proof of concept. Obviously we were mistaken."

Now, Blizzard did take a percentage of every transaction, so you might be able to attribute that to greed, but that's no different from any other provider of goods/services. Diablo III has had every single piece of content given for free since Reaper of Souls. I wouldn't be surprised if that's why some people were pissed that the necromancer would be paid for, since everything was given for free up to that point.

WoW: Can't comment, but surely there's a case to be made for a paid subscription being more based on greed than microtransactions? Complaining about cosmetic microtransactions is like complaining that it would cost money to buy fancy clothing. Either you buy the luxury or you don't - same reason why I don't care about cosmetic microtransactions in any game.

Overwatch/HotS: Case in point. The former is a paid game with every hero, map, and event given for free, so all that's left is cosmetics. I can't comment too much on it, but assuming it's similar to HotS, I don't see the issue. HotS is a F2P game with twenty heroes given away for free. Not the most consumer friendly ARTS in the world (arguably that's DotA 2), but it seems like a fair system to me. As someone who played HotS since its beta, I can't see how I was screwed over, since the new system has allowed me to get cosmetics without having to spend real money, which was previously the only way to get such things.

I can get the argument about the auction house, and I could even appreciate the argument about the subscription model for WoW (even though I don't agree with that argument - I still need to pay bills to Telstra for instance for ongoing Internet use, and F2P has tradeoffs of its own), but cosmetics? Seriously?

By way of contrast, last year I played Doom 2016 and Gears of War 4. Multiplayer-wise, new maps were released, but I'd have to pay for them. That's an example of what I call nickel and dimeing, because it artificially segregates the playerbase. True, Gears 4 had a cosmetics system that I could either grind my way through or use real money on, but cosmetics are just that - cosmetic. It's my choice how, or even if, to engage with said system, and it doesn't affect the gameplay. Compared to games like Overwatch/SC2/HotS/D3, where new maps/areas are given for free, I can't really complain.

 

[Fensfield]

I am struggling to see why I should be compelled to get into this, given as a PC user I'm still not allowed to play the first game and experience the first part of the story, and they don't appear to have any plans to change that...

 

[laggyteabag]

I am struggling to see why I should be compelled to get into this, given as a PC user I'm still not allowed to play the first game and experience the first part of the story, and they don't appear to have any plans to change that...

I really wouldn't worry about it. Destiny 1 was known for many things, and none of those involved having a good story. The Taken King expansion definitely made some strides in the right direction - which is certainly promising for D2 - but it was never anything to write home about.

Frankly, I would be surprised if they didn't do an exposition dump in Destiny 2, covering all of the goings on with the previous game and all of its DLC content, seeing as (I'd wager), a lot of people dropped the game during its lifespan.

But, at the end of the day, Destiny 2 looks more standalone than anything. The big bad guy shown in the trailer was nowhere to be seen in the first game, and I can't imagine that his story would really interconnect with anything that has happened so far.