Bungie Reveals Destiny 2 Beta Is Based On Months Old Build

Bungie released what it calls a “beta” for Destiny 2 to some incredible fanfare earlier this week, and being a huge fan of the series, I wasted no time jumping in. As much as I would have loved to have been wowed, I wasn’t. I seemed to be in the minority with my overall disappointment, but I wasn’t alone.

In short, my complaints stemmed around the fact that Destiny 2 looks to be an even simpler game than the original, when what I craved was a more in-depth game that would help get rid of those infamous Destiny lulls – months scattered around the calendar when fans inevitably jump ship to other games until another expansion drops.

Another concern that seems to be shared by virtually everyone is the fact that our gifted level 20 characters don’t feel like level 20 characters – based on what we know from the original. Recharges, for example (Supers, Grenade, Melee), take far longer to replenish than they should, leading many to horde their abilities until desperation strikes. That trickle effect is bad in PvE, but it’s even worse in PvP, where a single Super will be made available per round (unless your team dominates and scatter Super orbs all over the place, perhaps). Then there’s the complaint that most of the supers don’t feel that interesting. In talking to my clan mate TheNerdyWarrior, he agreed: “I don’t like the new subclass supers; they don’t feel special at all. Just rehashes of the old supers.” I tend to agree.

Still, there is obviously a lot to like, as well, but when you put hundreds of hours into a game you know is going to have a sequel and the developer makes myriad baffling decisions, it takes almost no effort to complain about it.

In the aforementioned post, I said:

I feel like this current beta serves no purpose other than to stress-test Bungie’s servers, because the content available doesn’t do much to give you an overall impression of the game. It’s more a demo than a beta, but that probably shouldn’t be a surprise since the game’s launch is still more than a month-and-a-half out.

I think this current beta’s designation of being a demo is even more apropos after Bungie revealed that the build we were given is months old. Yup – that build we’re all basing our opinions on is irrelevant to where the game stands today.

Regardless of how you choose to look at this situation, there are caveats at every corner. I believe Bungie should have called what it’s given us this week a demo, because it’s not a beta. A beta used to (*puts on old man’s cap*) refer to a game getting proper testing so that the developer could use player feedback to improve the final build. Betas never used to cut off a significant portion of the game, either. How can we test something that isn’t there?

From Bungie’s latest This Week At Bungie:

The nature of a Beta of this scale requires that it’s based off a build of the game that is now months old. So, in many cases, your feedback is helping us validate changes that were previously made based on internal feedback and playtesting.

Bungie apparently believes that a beta is a vehicle for figuring out whether or not improvements you’ve already made are kosher with the player base… as a result of seeing these folks complain about the issues those improvements will fix. Wow.

As the Destiny community would say, I am as salty as one could get about this beta. For me, the way Bungie has chosen to handle things is dumb for the players. But for its pocketbook? As Shaxx would say, “THIS IS AMAZING!”

Being the unbelievable sucker I am, I still can’t wait for the full game (on PS4 and PC, no less), but hot damn do I wish Bungie would cut it out with this BS.