Destiny 2
Destiny 2 is a first-person shooter, MMO hybrid, and over the past ten years, the Destiny franchise has bloomed and caught the attention of millions of players resulting in many games trying to copy it, specifically Destiny’s loot system and power rankings. Destiny 2 was released back in 2017 and players couldn’t be happier to get their hands on the game and its predecessor was a huge success for Bungie as well.
The way that the loot system works in Destiny is that each armor piece or weapon you get drops at a certain power level. The more you increase these power levels, the more your overall power level gets increased too. It’s this number that players refer to before jumping into higher-level activities, and it’s also the main focus with each weekly reset. Every week on Tuesday, the rewards get reset, meaning that players can once again work towards their overall power level to get stronger/better loot rewards.
The reward system in Destiny 2 goes in tiers, white loot is common, green loot is uncommon, blue loot is rare, purple loot is legendary, and yellow (or gold) loot is exotic, which is the rarest and most challenging to obtain. Because of how significant exotic loot is, they’re usually locked behind raids, quests, and challenging puzzles. They even have their own written lore giving them their own back story within the Destiny universe.
This is a very brief overview of what Destiny is at its absolute core. Now, let’s take a look at Outriders!
Outriders
Outriders is a third-person shooter, MMO hybrid, and the official game is set to release on April 1st, 2021, with the demo coming out on February 25th, 2021. The reason why I feel confident in doing a direct comparison between both Outriders and Destiny 2 is that so far, going by what we have seen with other looter shooters, Outriders is the only game with a similar model that has flooded us with information.
Gameplay after gameplay, with countless trailers showing off different aspects of the game, including developer commentary and guides in regards to gameplay elements within Outriders, there’s already a lot of information on the game. As said, there have been many other games that have tried to take Destiny’s place and be the next huge looter shooter, like The Division. The Division released a scripted gameplay trailer and then didn’t show anything else for a while until just prior to the game’s release, but the game had no longevity.
Marvel’s Avengers also tried to copy Destiny’s looter shooter aspect with power levels and higher overall gear stats but did a marketing push similar to the MCU movies where they’re extremely quiet until really close to launching, even their initial trailer didn’t show anything too wild. Upon Marvel’s Avengers release, a huge number of players left the game within a month, leaving the game in a really tough position.
Anthem is another game that we all know didn’t end well, especially when their reveal trailer wasn’t gameplay at all like they claimed to be but CGI. Another looter shooter whose objective after beating the campaign is to get better weapons and armour to get stronger. End game was lackluster and loot wasn’t rewarding at all. Anthem had such huge potential but again showed barely anything prior to launch.
Outriders has gone all-in with its marketing. As said above, they have really hammered down on getting as much information out there to the public as possible, making me really confident about the game. When a developer is showing you as much as they can about their product, it’s usually because it’s something that they feel very confident about and can’t wait for player feedback.
Final Thoughts
Due to the game being delayed until April 1st, 2021, the developers are releasing a public demo in a matter of days (25th February 2021) which is going to be free for everyone. You don’t even have to purchase the base game to get access! Again, this is such a huge and risky move for the developers because if the game is bad, literally everyone can see that and they could face some pre-order refunds if that’s the case. This further pushes my excitement for the game due to them taking such a huge risk and really trying to get as much Outriders content public as they can. This is something they are confident about, something they are excited about, and this is something I cannot wait to get my hands on!
Credits
| Program | Freedom! Scholarship |
| Author | Brad Hahn |
| YouTuber | Brad Hahn |
| Publisher | MGN TV |
| Game | Outriders |