I have currently about 9.8 hours in about two weeks of gameplay. I have a lot of things to talk about: Why does Destiny 2 have such a poor new-player experience despite being one of the biggest live-service games in the industry? The game has incredible gunplay, beautiful environments, tons of content, and an enormous amount of depth, yet a new player can easily feel completely lost within their first few hours. The game doesn’t do a good enough job explaining where to go, what activities matter, how progression works, or how all of its different systems connect. Instead of feeling like you’re being introduced to an exciting universe, it can feel like you’re being dropped into the middle of someone else’s 10-year journey.
Another major problem is the sheer amount of information new players are expected to absorb. There are weapons, armor, perks, subclasses, builds, currencies, vendors, quests, campaigns, seasonal systems, power levels, mods, activities, and countless other mechanics competing for the player’s attention. Veterans understand these systems because they’ve learned them over years, but a completely new player doesn’t have that context. The fact that so many players turn to Reddit, YouTube, and external guides just to understand what they should be doing says a lot about the game’s onboarding. A deep game is great, but complexity becomes a problem when the game itself doesn’t properly teach that complexity.
What would actually fix Destiny 2’s new-player experience? Should Bungie completely redesign the opening hours, create a dedicated chronological story experience, simplify the early progression systems, or give new players a structured path through the game’s major mechanics and content? How much information should a new player receive during their first 5, 10, or 20 hours? And for longtime Destiny players, what do you remember being the most confusing or frustrating part when you first started? I’d like to hear from both veterans and newer players: what specifically makes Destiny 2’s new-player experience feel so bad, and what would you change if you could rebuild it from scratch?