Considering that I never play games on my PC and consider mobile games to only be for five minutes of mindless fun while waiting for a bus, no one is more surprised than me that I have spent hours playing a mobile game on my PC. This may be in part due to the most recent Destiny 2 expansion being a bit of a dud, but Destiny: Rising has wrapped me back up in this sci-fi looter shooter setting ever since its release last week.
Destiny: Rising is NetEase’s free-to-play mobile spin-off to Bungie’s long-running series, creating a new alternate timeline and having been developed with Android and iOS in mind. But you can just play it on PC instead with an Android emulator, and this is fully sanctioned by NetEase, who promote it right alongside mobile platforms. Setting up the Mumu emulator, was pretty straightforward – other emulators like BlueStacks will also work – and after a quick tweak to my BIOS the game was up and running. I did have to get a new cable to get my DualSense working, but apart from that everything was quick and easy, with the Destiny: Rising gamepad controls being almost exactly the same as those on console.
Initial impressions are very good. This is Destiny, with almost every single thing found in Destiny 2, but mobile. Strikes, emotes, weapons upgrades, Supers, massive open world areas, finishers, matchmaking, PvP, sparrows – you name it and it’s here. Having a completely new version of Destiny to explore is very exciting and I am amazed just how much they have put into the game. It’s even got the football mini-game and a Destiny favourite, cats which you can pet and feed.
It’s also fully voiced with not just the characters but their ghosts as well, with lengthy, fully animated cutscenes when it’s time for some exposition. It has been discovered that a few unnamed NPCs have AI generated voices which do sound rather robotic, but the main cast is played by real humans and the acting is good. Young Ikora shines as a more feisty incarnation of her character and there’s even some gentle humour, something that has been missing from Destiny 2 for many years. The music is the same mix of evocative, soaring orchestral pieces and thumpy techno tracks Destiny fans will be familiar with, and chirping Ghosts.
I could go on like this for ages so let’s make it simple: You know Destiny 2? It’s that, but in your hands. The biggest difference is seen in the graphics. The character designs and FX are really quite detailed but some environments do look a little blocky. Imagine a PS3 game but running in 1080p at 60fps and you would be close. The only other noticeable difference in terms of content is that you have two weapons slots rather than three, and Energy weapons do not exist in Destiny: Rising.
The story is considered non-canon and set in a time before The First City, when Guardians were just finding their place in the world. Rather than play your own character you play as one of the named characters, starting off as Wolf, a recently resurrected Guardian who conveniently acts as a tutorial, as the world of Destiny and Guardians is explained to him and the player at the same time. Later on you will pick Kabr, a young man with a perchance for exaggeration, and then Destiny stalwart Ikora Rey. Each character has their own skills, Supers, and weapons, and picking the right character for the right mission might give you an added advantage. There are ten playable characters at present with another three coming soon as part of the live service.
Alongside the story there are a load of side missions and huge open world areas with collectables, secrets and Public Events, and again, these are all new. Familiar characters also start to surface, Xur and The Nine have a event that can be run for rewards and a popular, if renamed, character can be found in Haven – this game’s version of The Tower. Alongside Strikes there is a wave based activity run by Xur that requires you to move at speed through levels, and gives you modifiers with each level you pass.
My favourite activity by far is the Shifting Gates which is like D2’s Gambit on steroids. The premise is roughly the same, fight through areas, collect data cubes, and dump them at the collection point, but rather than tootling around in your own area with the occasional invader you are playing as part of six teams of three, all fighting across a large map. Destiny Mobile has an 18-player PvPvE mode, when the most Destiny 2 has ever managed is 8 player, and I think that says a lot about how Bungie has failed to maintain or expand on certain areas of their game.
On top of all the stuff recreated from Destiny, there’s a bunch of new stuff including Clan Housing, campfires, fishing, and the return of Sparrow Racing. Frankly there’s maybe a little too much and new players to Destiny may find it overwhelming, especially when there’s things pinging off every five seconds reminding you of a mission, a hidden chest, or the completion of a task. The gunplay is impactful and feels fairly solid, so while it’s not quite as heavy as the console game, it still packs a punch when needed. Matchmaking is also almost instant which took me by surprise, though considering 10 million had pre-registered for the game, maybe I shouldn’t be.
Being the F2P mobile game there are options to spend you cash including Gacha boxes and a Season Pass. The Gacha mechanic asks you to spend in-game currencies, or more likely pay cold hard cash for boxes that contain new characters, upgraded characters, weapons, or the various other currencies required for in-game upgrades. There is a smaller base pool of characters alongside time-limited specials, and the odds of getting anything good a ridiculously low, but so far I have yet to see any reason to spend anything than in-game currency. The Season pass will launch in the coming weeks and includes the usual mix of bonuses and weapons.
Destiny: Rising – How to get Bon Voyage Charms quickly
Destiny: Rising has the one thing that Destiny players have been clamouring for: a huge batch of refreshingly new content to explore. The bonus is that, while it’s a mobile game, you can just load it up on PC, grab a gamepad and get close to the Destiny 2 experience in the process. You don’t even need a jacked up gaming rig to run it. There are hours of content to play without spending any cash so it’s not hard to recommend at least giving it a try, but the ultimate test is still to come. As time goes on, how much content will NetEase lock being paywalls or paid character upgrades?
But in the long run, Destiny: Rising’s greatest achievement might be giving the kick up the bum that Bungie needs to focus on things players want.
