The Destiny 2 beta is showing positive things, but the cracks are easy to see for any veteran Destiny player and that’s nerve-racking. Destiny 2 should not just be a glossed-up Destiny 2 Exotics with a fresh coat of paint, it needs to prove that it is the FPSMMO it always intended to be. When hiding things like the item menu from players, however, those feelings of unease just won’t go away.

Looking back at the original beta for vanilla Destiny, there was a tremendous amount to do and see, even some leveling involved. The Destiny 2 beta feels like Bungie is keeping their cards close to the chest because anything that could rock the boat might just tip it over. Destiny is successful, but it comes with a reputation, and scuffing up that reputation in anyway could make or break sales numbers once September rolls around. The beta gives enough of itself to put players at ease while also remaining the carrot and the stick. For a Destiny fan, it’s easy enough to digest; take everything learned from Destiny and apply that to this beta, it’s a guaranteed good time. For those who might be making their way back though, this might look more like a shooter than the online multiplayer game Bungie promised. While I can only speculate as to why the amount of content was significantly trimmed down, it’s probably for good reason or it’s just actually a beta.

The Strike is a good place to start. It reveals a little more of the world players can expect, showcasing great improvements to Destiny. The most notable thing about the Strike is just how open it felt. Instead of running casually down one big hallway that twist and turns, the Strike makes use of all the space available. The number of paths available was astounding and never has it been so easy to get separated from the group, meaning communication (or keeping an eye out) is key. Party members can’t just run ahead to go off and do their own thing; the Strike actually requires some teamwork and that’s a good thing. More than a few times, imminent danger is awaiting any careless Guardian who might think "I’ve got this." The mechanics of it all also helped with this feeling, giving the Strike enough complexity, but not so much that it felt bogged down. It’s hard to get an exact read, though, because this is only one Strike and without leveling of any sort, it might just seem tough. This is how every Destiny expansion has played out. Things feel like they were getting more challenging, but level up enough gear and light, and those Strikes become cake-walks. I even encountered some of this already, by just breezing past the giant drill without stopping. What looked like a challenging set piece became just a set piece. No interaction required.

Getting back to the main story, though, you kill one version of Oryx in his chambers, but that’s not good enough, so you need to track him down once more in the Ascendant Realm and put the final nail in his coffin. This come in the form of the lengthy and well organize raid.

Traveling to Venus, you run into the Vex for the first time and finally get to meet the mysterious Exo who has been watching you this entire time. She informs you that the Vex are the real threat and it’s up to you the find out what’s going on. It’s implied that the Awoken know the location of where you can find the Vex headquarters, so it’s off to the Reef.

But anyway, the Inverted Spire is all about putting a stop to Protheon, the Modular Mind. To get to him, you'll have to fight through hoards of Vex and Cabal who are also fighting each other. They take you down into a dig site, where the Cabal have been looking for Protheon. It's pretty straight forward, but there are some cool set pieces, like the dig site itself, which has you dodging huge drills as you descend, and Protheon's temple, which changes as the fight goes on.

Many familiar faces filled the screen as the hour of Destiny 2 played out, characters any player could recognize (Holiday did look slick flying that ship.) Destiny 2 means introducing new faces to the fold, folks that may have been there the whole time, but Guardians were to busy running around the galaxy to pay attention too. At least, that’s what I like to think. Getting down on the people's level though, actually coming down from their Tower, Guardians will hopefully see firsthand the struggles that the Last City had to go through on a daily basis. New places and new faces means new content. Guardians always had a pretentiousness about them. I enjoyed my Guardian, but it felt like we were all on a high horse policing the universe without a care for those we were actually supposed to be protecting. This isn’t a new concept, though, even having been written into the lore. It's known that children are told stories at night about Guardians to frighten them. Protectors or a something worse? Guardians are undead soldiers after all, Zavalas haunting speech while returning over and over again, shook me. My guardian has done this exact thing, but actually seeing the impact and hearing how twisted it sounded made me feel like one of the children that lives in the Last City.