Some believe that the greatest victories are those won through adversity. It seems that there’s something innately interesting about tales of redemption, of rising above the odds, of staring mistakes or dark pasts in the face and ultimately conquering them. Bungie’s “Destiny 2,” which released a couple of weeks ago, seems to adhere to that mentality in a figurative and literal sense. In the sci-fi multiplayer shooter, there are many indications that things have changed significantly for both the developer and its IP.

When the original “Destiny” launched in 2013, gamers were flabbergasted by the lack of content, the underwhelming and meaningless story, and monotonous elements that made the game overall not fun to play—and certainly not worth the retail price of $60. But ever since then, Bungie has sought to rectify its mistakes via expansions. 2011’s expansion in particular, “The Taken King,” made major changes to the “Destiny” formula and addressed many of these criticisms. 2016’s “Rise of Iron” made smaller but noticeable polishes to the game as well.

Why do I bring this up? Because in “Destiny 2,” Bungie continues its trend of constantly tweaking, experimenting, and refining what this franchise is. There are many differences between this game and the last--graphical updates aside--that set this game apart from its predecessor and certainly from its predecessor’s launch experience.

Starting From Scratch

To give you some perspective on just how much Bungie cares about starting fresh and making up for past sins, we need only look at the campaign. Players new and old are once again put in the shoes of Guardians: super-powered warriors who wield an extraterrestrial power called the Light and defend Earth’s last city from hostile alien forces.

But the Guardians meet their match when a powerful army known as the Red Legion--led by the calculating and ruthless Dominus Ghaul--invades the Tower that the Guardians call home and lay waste to it. Worse yet, Ghaul takes the Light for his own, rendering the Guardians powerless. Thus, we have the premise of the game: it’s up to you to regain your lost powers, reunite the scattered Guardians, and take your home back from the Red Legion.

With how watered-down and practically non-existent the story of the original “Destiny” was, I was initially cautious and skeptical about the story for this game. Thankfully, the story is not at all non-existent. In fact, it does pretty much everything in its power to immerse you in a cinematic, emotional, humorous, and action-packed adventure that will take you across the Solar System.

From the moment I experienced the harrowing escape from the crumbling Tower in the game’s second mission, I knew I was in for a narrative that was vastly different from the one “Destiny” had to offer.

There are stakes, engaging characters, and a sense of importance to the things the player does--things that “Destiny” severely lacked. While the story and its writing may not be on the level of shooters like “BioShock” or “Halo 3,” it is certainly competent and quite enjoyable to experience.

Special commendation must be given to Bungie for its handling of Ghaul’s character. The Red Legion commander is surprisingly interesting; he’s not a mustache-twirling jerk, but an imposing force with an ideology that is realistic and even on some levels understandable.

The plot of “Destiny 2” is nothing extraordinary. In many places, it’s a little cliché; at its worst, it strays into the “point-A-to-point-B” mentality most shooters fall into with their single-player campaigns. Having said that, it at least tries and on many fronts succeeds.

It’s entertaining, it has just the right duration--clocking in at around 8 to 10 hours--and it’s an indication that Bungie is listening to the feedback they’ve received about the “Destiny” franchise for the past four years. The game’s story is indicative of change within the game’s world and the developers who have shaped it.

A Brave New World With Plenty To Do

The theme of change extends into the gameplay just as much as it does the narrative. The game is spread across four large maps, each with their own secrets, enemy types and activities. It is the latter that is emphasized most in these maps; when you’re not playing the campaign (or have completed it), you have a wide array of choices.

Do you start one of the game’s Quests or Adventures, both of which flesh out the lore of the “Destiny” universe? Do you hop into real-time Public Events, where you and other Guardians cooperate to accomplish a randomly-generated objective? Or, will you roam the map Indiana Jones-style, looting caves and crevices for special tokens that can net you exclusive gear?

These choices and others make the different worlds worth exploring and most importantly revisiting. Given how Bungie touted the single-player experience as only a fraction of the entire package, what they absolutely needed to do was give players a reason to want to play in this world besides a campaign. Overall I believe the maps are indeed fun to explore, and to this day I’m still looting and shooting in hopes of better gear and new discoveries.

I will note that traveling across these maps is a tad disorienting at times, and also sometimes very lengthy. Players can use vehicles to traverse landscapes easier and quicker, but that requires hijacking enemy units, as players don’t receive personal vehicles until the campaign has concluded—and by then, you’ll have done a lot of running, walking, and jumping. Though the game does have a map function and a fast travel system, hoofing it from place to place or cheesing travel times with fast travel seems lackluster and kind of tedious.

Nevertheless, the worlds are rich and diverse, each one completely distinct from the other. One minute you’ll be in the forests of war-torn Europe, and the next you’ll be on the strange, half-mechanized centaur called Nessus. It is clear that Bungie’s put a lot of love into designing the maps and giving each one its own voice, so to speak.

Three’s (Or Four’s) A Crowd

Being a multiplayer online game, one would likely wonder what kind of multiplayer options “Destiny 2” has to offer. Like the previous installment, players can co-op with one another during map explorations and the campaign. Also returning are Strikes, special three-man missions with a boss and a loot chest at the end, and the Crucible, the game’s PVP environment.

Strikes are linear in design, but do have enough interesting challenges to spice things up. From deadly laser puzzles to a boss with multiple phases, the Strike missions demand close cooperation and careful timing; it isn’t just a matter of shooting enemies and getting to a finish line. In fact, the Nightfall Strike--a super-difficult version of a randomly-picked mission that changes weekly--will put you and your friends’ skills to the ultimate test, pitting you against ruthless enemies, a time limit, and optional parameters that you can complete for extra rewards.

The Crucible gets a major facelift from the last time we saw it, now hosting 4-on-4 matches instead of 6-on-6. Believe it or not, that two player difference--when you take into account the balancing of armor and gun perks--actually makes a difference.

Players will more likely than not be punished for trying to lone-wolf it instead of being a team player; nowhere is this more apparent than in the new Competitive playlist, which sees players pitted against one another in challenging game types that are either objective-based or focused on depleting an enemy team’s respawns.

A Bright Destiny Ahead

“Destiny 2” is not a perfect game. The worlds aren’t Liberty City-sized sandboxes, and the campaign isn’t anything that’s going to win every story-based award ever. At the time of this writing, there are some bugs and glitches, plus a rather stingy cosmetic system that is tied to microtransactions--always pleasant.

Amidst what glitches and errors and gripes I can conjure about the game, though, I can’t bring myself to criticize it like so many others do. Having come from the first “Destiny” and having seen the problems with said game, I have to give Bungie a pat on the back. Not as a means of ignoring what has transpired in the past, but rather confronting it, accepting it and most importantly learning from it.

In the campaign, the character Cayde-6 has a humorous line parodying an infamous bit of dialogue from the first “Destiny” that not only turned off gamers, but became a derogatory meme used to criticize the first game’s story. In a way, these kinds of moments let people know that Bungie knows it screwed up and that it wants to do better. And it did. These moments--and the game as a whole, despite its flaws--show Bungie’s level of genuine effort and heart that once was missing from “Destiny.”

So far, I’ve put in around thirty hours on the game and it’s not looking like I’ll slow up anytime soon. There’s a lot to do, to see, to accomplish--and given how Bungie loves its updates and expansions, there’ll soon be even more to do.

So I say to “Destiny” vets and newcomers alike: give the game a try, even if it’s only the base game and none of the forthcoming expansion content. Who knows? You might find yourself like me, wanting eagerly to get back into space and roam the cosmos as a space wizard that can fling purple energy bombs at aliens.

Yes, that’s in the game.