Let's not beat around the bush here: Destiny 2 is no longer Destiny 2. It's worse than an EA game. It's worse than an Activision game. But today I'm not here to hate on it. Instead, I want to bring all the veterans back to the time they first played Destiny. I want to remember the good old times. When we didn't have seasonal passes, holiday passes, dungeon keys, $50 expansions, bundles, and eververse. From this point forward, let's just ignore what Bungie has become and just share stories of what once was. I don't want to see people trashtalking Bungie, cause trust me, we have enough of that on other threads dedicated to holding them accountable. If you want to talk trash about Bungie, don't do it on this thread, instead do it on the following thread I made myself dedicated to holding Bungie accountable: [url]https://www.bungie.net/en/Forums/Post/262856658?sort=0&page=0[/url] Now, let's go back in time. I remember when I first played Destiny at launch. Was it disappointing? Yes, it was. But it had such wonder, such mystery, and such passion that simply cannot be understated. The beautiful feeling of getting to the Moon, Venus, Mars, and the Black Garden. The cutscenes just felt cool and mysterious to watch (yes, even [b]that[/b] one on Venus with the Exo Stranger). Hot take: our Guardian's voice acting has only ever been good during Destiny 1's campaign, and never again. Getting loot and leveling up was just so... cool to do in a shooter game. And the beautiful music... it just brings me back. We didn't experience much else for a while, but then the Taken King dropped. I remember going to Phobos and seeing the Cabal fleeing from their base, then we go into it and there's just eerie silence until we finally meet the Taken. We then have to get out in an awesome escape segment and when we do, we get an iconic scene with Cayde and the gang. You know the one. But right after that is my favorite mission in Destiny history: Cayde's Stash. Just climbing that big structure, moving the crane to get across, and then having a fight with an Echo of Oryx. All during the mission, Cayde is there saying Cayde things and it's awesome. There are other highlights, the stealth mission on the Moon to get a sliver of Crota's soul and Eris saves you with her darkness powers, and the boss fight against Oryx which will never not be cool. Then in Rise of Iron, the very first mission has us climb up a mountain and ride a tram, only to have to jump out midway. Then the fight against Sepiks which isn't really good but at least he looked cool. I remember going to the new Plaguelands and seeing all the SIVA transforming everything, alongside the new SIVA Fallen with their cool new abilities. I loved using the fiery axe to mow down enemies like they're nothing because back then, you just couldn't do that in Destiny. And then Destiny 2 launches, with what is easily the best campaign in the entire franchise, the Red War. I remember that just like Destiny 1, I thoroughly enjoyed its flawed launch simply because of how cool the new areas were. The old characters were great, and the new characters other than Sloane were just as awesome. The additions of Adventures were awesome, adding bits of story to the game while also giving you a reason to actually go to destinations because back then, you had actual progression. The design of Strikes was also miles above Destiny 1. Then Curse of Osiris came along and I genuinely enjoyed it. I liked seeing old Mercury as a garden world, and seeing future Mercury where light and dark no longer exist. And I especially loved the fight with Panoptes, easy as it was. I didn't really like the Warmind at all, but seeing icy Mars with icy Hive was cool, and finally meeting Rasputin was awesome. Later, Forsaken comes and it's an instant hit. The missions in the campaign are simply awesome. The Spider is great, and if I'm not mistaken, its the first time we have ever had NPC allies in Destiny, not counting Memory of Timur in Rise of Iron. The Scorn were awesome and creepy as a new enemy faction, being like a combination of the Fallen and the Hive. But now the most passionate part of Forsaken, the Dreaming City. Now, I don't know if the Dreaming City was ever actually advertised but I saw many trailers for the expansion before it came out and it was never emphasized, if even mentioned, in any of the trailers. Forsaken was the first and only time in Destiny history where we got more than what was strictly advertised for the DLC, and thus the first time where a Destiny DLC could actually compete with the big-league DLCs of other games. For this reason I consider it to be the best DLC Destiny has ever had... and it's the last time Destiny had true passion. I miss the actual character level you had to upgrade your subclasses. I miss when Destiny was about weapons instead of abilities, about getting cool god roll weapons instead of buildcrafting your subclass and armor. I miss when I didn't get yelled at just because I don't have triple 100s on all my armor, or when I didn't get yelled at for using my favorite exotics in the raids. But more than anything else... I just miss the [b][i]passion[/i][/b] that Destiny once had. The wonder and mystery. The atmosphere and introduction of each new enemy factoin. And of course, who among us could ever forget the soft feeling of the music by Marty O'Donnel that can never be truly replicated by Bungie no matter how hard they try. This one's to you, Marty. The first to become legend :) I encourage you guys to share your own stories of Destiny, but if you want to criticize Bungie, do it in the link I gave at the start. Don't do it here, because this thread is just for pure vibes and nostalgia.