The way it worked before New Light was, you are crippled without the light, going celestial body to celestial body helping Ikora, Cayde (rip), and Zavala to take out Ghaul and the almighty. For some odd reason, Bungie thought “forget all that stuff, new players should jump straight into the game” previously, you had to complete the red war campaign to get access to the tower but it’s unlocked automatically along with subclass trees. Now, they want to add D1 story content to D2 which is completely unnecessary and it’s going to be more confusing to new light players. Will of Crota strike is coming back, new light players will ask “who’s Crota” only to find out that it was a cut out from D1 and need to pay for another game to get filled in.

The bulk of the story is contained in the game's lore (shooter gamers and loot-gamers have little patience for lengthy or complex storytelling). Also most of the major plot points that you need to understand what's going on right now in Destiny 2, took place in Destiny 1. https://youtu.be/9mbDXvDNqTU I think this has to be the longest original content videos on YouTube, but it is worth the time to watch. My Name is Byf is one of the best lore-based content creators in the community, and does an awesome job here distilling the game's lore down into a single, easy to understand story lie. He has a second video on his channel that does the same with the lore for Destiny 2 that will catch you up to current events. Right now is a critical time in the story of Destiny. But its hard to understand what's going on and why its important for new players because these events have been six years in the making.

You can read what you want to read forwards, backwards or upside down and the story still won't make sense.

Forget the story stuff. It’s all about the shooting. Mindless boring repetitive shooting. Even veterans don’t understand all the lore. It’s like a side piece. Also it’s easier to YouTube the lore and enjoy d2 stories that way.

In my opinion Bungie start stories and never really finish them. Most of D1’s rich story was cut up and spat out in bits and pieces... most of it now is considered by Bungie as “not canon”. D2’s “story” is made up of mini soap operas with very few finales... they didn’t even know “what the darkness was” when they started on D2. If you want continuity of story, this is not the game for you.

Once they started a seasonal model, the had zero regard for new players in terms of story.

Coherence isn’t Bungies strong suit.

Yeah, the story is all over the place in the Destiny universe. There is very little continuity and even numerous contradictions. Much of it is found only in Lore pages and on item descriptions. To make things "better", Bungie is cutting out whole swathes of the gameplay story and instituting the origin mission from D1 come Beyond Light. If you want to experience anything from the Red War, Curse of Osiris, or Warmind story lines; they will only be around for a few more weeks. Anyhow, you can find some clarity below from "My name is Byf". He is a reliable Destiny mythologist. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mbDXvDNqTU

Destiny 1 introduced guardians as a whole and just took you throughout the universe they had build at the time, which included: Venus, Mars, Earth, the moon and the reef. Later the dreadnaught (a hive capital ship basically) was added for a new location as well as new locations on earth for different Dlc story lines. Destiny one didnt have a great story in the beginning (or one at all) as most of it was explained through grimore, which was unlockable story told through text on these unlocked cards, which ironically needed a third party app or destiny tracker to look at, no where in game could you read this making it very confusing to many as to what enemies had back stories and places that had story as well. Bungie made a mistake and moved Destiny into a 2nd game, where they should of just built on the first game to avoid gear loss for veteran players and not create story confusion for new players like yourself. For destiny one just look up a video on gameplay or all cutscenes through out the entire game, that should cover it pretty well. Now destiny 2 started off with the cabal or the red legion attacking the last city to take control of the traveler, they destroyed the original tower (the tower in destiny 1 you did stuff at) which relocated guardians to a country side safe zone which was the farm, did you know there’s a hub on earth called the farm? It’s easily missable now that you have the tower right in front of your directory, as to where the farm is tucked away on earth. Now there’s a ton more to what happened in the short story of the red war so I’d just look up a playthrough of it, but destiny builds upon itself constantly so there’s not really a straight direction of any story.

Go watch (my_name_is_byf) for lore binging.

You can go to Amanda Holliday in the hanger to pick up the previous storylines. With new light, they made it so players don't have to do the hours-long story to catch up with current activities. Joining in late means you're coming to the tower after the events of the red war and Forsaken story.

One thing worth noting is if you want to experience the campaign as it is now (although it's already different than launch) do it now before Beyond Light as the removal of 4 of the planets will mean a drastic change to the campaign.