As of the recording of this video, Bungie, the makers of Destiny, is set to open up Cross-Saves across gaming platforms for all players of Destiny on August 21st 2019. With the release of Shadowkeep in October, Bungie will also be re-launching Destiny with New Light, thus converting the game to a Free to Play model for new players. This will mean that there will be a ton of new players diving into the game for the first time and, let’s be honest, this game has an incredibly deep story! To help aid new comers, which we veteran Destiny players affectionately refer to as Kinder-Guardians, I’ve put together an extremely brief yet concise summary of what you need to know if you’re jumping into the franchise with fresh eyes.

This is Videogame Crosstalk, and I hope you enjoy this Destiny Lore video.

  1. Welcome to the World
    1. To be clear, this video will give you the most simplest version of the story, as well as what to expect gameplay wise. For a more complete story, I would suggest MyNameIsByf Destiny 1 recap that he released before the launch of Destiny 2. However, keep in mind that his video is about an hour long. The intent of this video is to get the job done in a only few minutes, just enough to get you started, and then you’ll figure the rest of the stuff out on your own.
    2. So, Let’s BEGIN!
    3. When you first load into the world, you will be awoken by this little floaty robot eye with a friendly voice. The world seems a bit post-apocalyptic, and almost immediately you have some big uglies shooting laser rifles at you. So, what the heck just happened?
    4. The origins of Destiny takes place in the near future, the exact year isn’t important. It’s far enough ahead so that humanity has some pretty awesome tech, but we haven’t hit faster than light travel yet.
    5. This all changes when The Traveler arrives. A massive, white marble looking moon thing just kind of appears in our Solar system. We don’t know much about it, but somehow it bestows upon humanity all sorts of great knowledge and benefits.
    6. This “Blessing” we’ll call it ushers in Humanity’s Golden Age. Massive technological advances, extended life expectancy, the whole thing. One of the great tech companies to emerge from this is the Clovis Bray corporation, whose creations include the Warmind, a massive AI that will eventually become self aware and declare it’s independence (no way that will turn nasty) and the Exo project, where humans can voluntarily upload their consciousness to a machine frame.
    7. Everything is fine and dandy, but what we don’t know is that the Traveler is hunted by “The Darkness”, an evil Space energy thingy. We still don’t know much about it, but we do know that it’s nasty.
    8. When the Darkness finally catches up with the Traveler, humanity experiences what is now known as “The Collapse”. It is near annihilation for the planet, and there are even reports of the Darkness forcing some people keep their eyes open during the downfall for the sole purpose of watching their society suffer. Ya, the Darkness is that evil! 
    9. During the collapse, the Traveler’s last ditch effort before it is overcome is to enter a dormant state and produce what are known as Ghosts. You know, that little light buddy that woke you up in the middle of that field? Ya, those guys!
    10. When the Ghosts are created, it is their sole mission to seek out worthy dead from the battlefield, kind of like Valkyries. These individuals are known their “Charges”. Once their Charge is found, they then resurrect the individual into a new life.
    11. Those who are resurrected are first known as “The Risen”, for obvious reasons. But not only are these Risen alive again, they have no memory of their past life and they now wield “the Light of the Traveler”. Meaning, they now have super powers and can do all the awesome things that you see in the gameplay trailers. The Risen draw their power from the Traveler through their Ghost, making the Ghost a kind of conduit for their abilities.
    12. Since the Risen owe their new life and their new abilities to the Traveler, they swear to protect the Traveler and the rest of humanity from the alien forces trying to claim the Traveler and its Light as their own. In time, the Risen are come to be known as Guardians, and that is what you are. Welcome, Guardian, to your new life.
  2. To begin your game, you will go through your basic character creation. At this point, your gender or race really do not make a difference in the game play. The dialogue will adjust to use the appropriate pronoun, but that’s about it.
    1. You will then choose between three Main Classes
      1. Titan, if you enjoy punching things
      2. Hunter, if you enjoy increased mobility and sharpshooting
      3. Or Warlock, if you enjoy blowing things up.
      4. Full disclosure, I’m a Warlock Main!
    2. Each class then has three subclasses based on Elemental Light
      1. Arc is the name for electrical energy
      2. Solar is the name for fire energy
      3. And Void is the name for….well, its kind of an abstract concept. But it’s associated with “The Empty Space Between Stars” and it has a kind of Death vibe to it. 
      4. Don’t worry about choosing subclass much, as you’ll end up switching between all three depending on what you’re doing.
  3. The Tower is the main Social Space in the game. Since Destiny is a hybrid between MMO and FPS, there’s going to be times where you just need to sort through your gear and get organized. The Tower is where this all happens.
    1. By it’s very nature, there are No enemies in the Tower. It is located within the last safe city on Earth, and it’s where all Guardians rendevous between missions.
    2. This is where you’ll find (most of) the game’s Vendors
      1. From them you’ll be able to pick up your daily and weekly Bounties, which are essentially gameplay objectives. They will include things like, “Defeat 30 enemies with shotguns” or “Defeat 15 enemies with Arc Abilities”, stuff like that.
      2. Complete these bounties for nominal rewards and experience. Obviously, the bigger the bounty the bigger the reward.
    3. This is also where you will find your Vault. The Vault is where you will keep all your extra gear that you don’t want to throw away but only need in special instances. The storage is Account based, so your stash is accessible by all your characters regardless of which character obtained or deposited it.
  4. OK, enough about you! Let’s talk about Enemy Races
    1. The first enemies you’ll face in New Light will be the Fallen. They refer to themselves as the “Eliksni”, and they experienced a Golden Age of their own. However, the Traveler left them during what they call the “Whirlwind” and they’ve been chasing the Traveler ever since, trying to reclaim what they once had. So far, it hasn’t been working too well for them.
    2. Once you start into the main campaign of Destiny 2 you’ll be going against the Cabal. Massive space turtles that are incredibly militaristic and base all their unit names on those from Ancient Rome. Legionnaires, Phalanxes, Centurians, and the like. The majority of Destiny 2 focuses on “The Red War” against the Cabal for the game vanilla campaign, then moving on to dealing with Emperor Calus who has his own host of secrets.
    3. No game with a Fantasy aspect is complete without some kind of necrotic race, and here in Destiny we have The Hive. Obsessed with runes and rituals, the Hive follow a kind of religion called the Sword Logic, which essentially dictates that if you are destined to be part of the final, perfect shape of the universe, then you must prove you are worthy. You do that by killing…well, everything. If you kill it, you claim it’s power and prove simultaneously that you are worthy and the thing you destroyed is not. Kill everything, and prove that you are absolute.
    4. No game with a Sci-Fi aspect is complete without a race of sentient robots, and here in Destiny we have the Vex. The Vex are a race of time traveling robotic frames that share a collective consciousness. They were brought into this universe when Crota, son of the Hive God Oryx, tried to impress his father by claiming dominance in a pocket universe of his own. However, by creating a gate to this alternate universe he found the Vex, which poured in and….well, that’s a story for another time! Since then, the Vex have pursued a singular purpose of converting planets and moons in to super-computers in order to run simulations. The purpose of these simulations is to determine a course of action in which the Vex and only the Vex are victorious.
    5. Next up are The Taken. If you notice, the Taken look like shadowy, dark space magic versions of other races. That’s because they are. Remember the Sword Logic? Well, Hive God Oryx gained SO MUCH power by killing that he eventually gained knowledge of how to enslave his enemy’s spirit against their will. In doing so they gain new, dark abilities and take on that deep space appearance. Unfortunately, for them, we killed Oryx in Destiny 1 so the Taken are now leaderless, As of yet, we still don’t know exactly what Oryx’s two sisters, Savathun and Xivu Arath, are up to…
    6. With the release of the previous expansion, Forsaken, players were introduced to a new enemy type, the Scorn. The Scorn were once Fallen but they rejected the old ways, started following some new Barons, and began drinking dark Ether. Or, Dark Ether was being used to corrupt dead Fallen, and they rose in this new, twisted form. Either way, it’s not a pretty sight and they are nasty to deal with.
    7. One race from Destiny 1 that has not been seen in Destiny 2, yet, are the SIVA Splicers. SIVA is a nano technology that was developed for deep space exploration. It didn’t require a fuel source, and it would execute a command autonomously until the task was complete. The last known command given to SIVA was “Consume.Enhance.Replicate”, meaning that the nanites would deconstruct any piece of matter, organic or otherwise, determine what enhancements would make it better, and make unlimited duplications until perfection was achieved. With the Release of Rise of Iron at the end of Destiny 1, the Fallen sought to harness the power of SIVA to self-augment themselves into cyborgs, thus bringing them closer to machine perfection.
  5. Activities
    1. Now that we know about ourselves and the universe’s other inhabitants, what is there do actually “DO” in Destiny?
    2. Obviously, there are the main story and expansion Campaign Missions that will tell you the core story of Destiny 2. There are also Adventures, which is the term that Destiny uses in place of “Side Quests”. Each planet has a defined set of Adventures and missions, and once you play through them they are removed from the map.
    3. If you are looking for some casual play, you can enter any planet location in Exploration mode and run endless patrols. Patrols are the simplest forms of tasks you can find, such as “Defeat x number of enemies in this location” or “Go defeat this big baddy in the neighboring location”, or “Go to this location and Scout it out for us”. No bounty to track, to mission milestones, none of that. Just do the thing and snag some quick rewards.
    4. Of course, there’s the Crucible for some PvP action against other guardians which is more or less self explanatory. There are several game modes that will rotate through week to week, and there are two playlists to choose from: Valor and Glory. Valor will gain you ranks just by playing, win or lose, while glory will gain you ranks only by winning. Obviously, the Glory playlist is the playlist for competitive Guardians.
    5. Vanguard Strikes is a playlist that when entered will launch one of several canned missions that end with a boss battle and typically take about 15min, depending on how good your strike team is. Strikes require 3 guardians, so if you are queuing solo or with one other teammate the Bungie servers match you up with other random guardians to get you up to three. Don’t worry, the mechanics in strikes are simple enough so that you don’t actually need communication between team members. Just follow someone’s lead and pay attention to the on-screen prompts and you’ll be just fine.
    6. Raids are the ultimate in End Game content. They require six guardians to complete, there is no match making, and the onscreen prompts are extremely limited. You will receive no explicit directions and no way points for where to go next. Communication is an absolute must between team mates, and a single raid can require several hours of continuous play to complete. If you are new to Destiny you should focus on other activities first. But once you are “Raid Ready”, they are SO MUCH FUN!
    7. There are a few other activities like Gambit and Forge Ignitions, but you’ll get to those soon enough. 
  6. And now for a few final notes before I send you on your way:
    1. One thing that keeps Guardians coming back to Destiny is that there is plenty of Deep Lore to be found. These come in the form of either book entries or certain gear pieces will have additional “Lore Tabs” associated with them. These entries will either tell a contained story or collectively tell a much larger story across a set of entries. If Lore is your thing, there is plenty out there for you to find and piece together!
    2. Finally, I cannot stress this enough: Destiny is Better with Friends!
      1. If you’re feeling adventurous enough, you can look into joining a Clan. Clans are communities of players who will routinely play activities together and help other members achieve goals. Thanks to my clan i was able to complete several Exotic Weapon quests and climb the ranks in certain game modes.
      2. There is also “LFG” which is short for “Looking For Group”. This is a kind of forum for guardians to either post what activity they are looking for help with or to join up with other guardians who are looking for help. For instance, I have used LFG when trying to advance in certain quests or achievements when there were no clan mates available. Using LFG will produce mixed results, but that’s just the nature of the beast.
  7. And THAT is all i have for this video! You can follow me on Twitter @VGXTPod for more updates on the channel and the podcast. This is my first Destiny Video, and I hope to start creating Destiny Lore Shorts, aiming for 7min long, just to help get newer guardians up to speed, and taking a look back on some older lore through the lens of “If we knew then what we know now”. 
  8. But until then, If you would like to support this channel but can’t think of anything to say, simply leave the comment, “Welcome”, to serve as a message to new Guardians launching into the Cosmodrome for the first time. Thank you for watching, and remember, “Keep your feet on the ground and the enemy in your crosshairs!”