Bungie’s Destiny tracker account just asked the question via Twitter very clearly, and to his surprise, it drew a lot of attention. They just wanted to find out when the gamers had their Destiny 1 or 2 start and why. The responses, though, are an account of personal experiences and a wild ride through the gaming world. Besides, these responses can be viewed as a time capsule containing the community’s entire journey, starting from the very first beta and ending with the free-to-play newcomers.
The first tweet was quite basic: it stated, “When did you start playing Destiny (1 or 2) and why?” along with a photo of a guardian making a heroic gesture. The responses quickly came in one after the other. It is really wonderful how just a simple question could recall so many people’s memories.
The biggest part of the community that played in Destiny 1, which seems to be a very large number of people, first had their adventure during the Destiny 1 beta in 2014. One of the posters, Fenix_A2Z, reflected the mood very well when he said, “D1 in the Beta. Used to love Bungie.” and Lego Melone contributed, “Destiny 1 Beta. Saw what it was and was happy to have been part of the initial wave of guardians.” The comments really express the feeling of having been there since the very beginning and almost all of them are speaking with the pride of being day one guardians, which is very nice.
In contrast, the replies were quite diverse. Some stories were really funny, for example, that of Skyleon who told, “Funny story. I went to Walmart wanting to buy a phone and the phone area was closed for the night so I was like screw it, ima just buy a game. I got Destiny and Watch Dogs. Destiny hooked me immediately.” Just imagine the situation: your entire gaming destiny, which the pun was indeed intentional, being changed just because the phone section at Walmart was closed! It’s just how life goes sometimes, I guess.
At the same time, there were the emotional stories that really hit hard. A user named FatesLofi shared, “I went through a bad divorce and had to move in with my little brother; I became an alcoholic. I would stay up till 4 am doing God knows what; one day he was playing Destiny and I asked about it. He said I should try it out. I played 18 hours straight that night and the rest is history.” That’s a pretty strong statement right there. Sometimes games are just more than entertaining; they can actually be a lifeline. “Late 2014 when my son was playing and needed my help to figure something out. I ended up creating my own account with Titan as my first. I’ve been clocking in ever since,” was DNA’s sweet remark. Parent-child gaming bonds are indeed the best.
For a lot of people, the connection with Bungie was a major factor in their decision to try out the game. Chase Observes said, “December 26, 2014. I was a huge Halo fan growing up but had kind of stopped gaming in college, didn’t own a console. My friends told me about Destiny. They said it was Bungie’s new game, and that got my interest.” The Bungie halo legacy certainly attracted many people from the old times to the new game. A Proph3cy__ user declared as he was straight up: “Why not? Bungie did Halo 1-3, Reach, and ODST. I liked all of those so I was excited for a new Bungie game.” It’s like if Bungie’s making it, you just trust it’s gonna be good, right?
However, not everyone cherishes flowers and rainbows recollections. TPlaysNow had a… hard, even complicated, relationship stating, “Destiny 1 Beta, and since then they have continued to break my heart over and over again. I finally broke the cycle and stopped playing this credit card simulator last year.” Ouch! That “credit card simulator” insult is quite dripping with sarcasm but also fairly true for some gamers’ experience with the monetization. Also, Zach was like “I played a lot of the D1 Alpha with a friend, bought the game, quickly completed the initial content, didn’t want to buy the DLC, and never touched it again. Played a little D2 with some different friends after buying a pack. Played a ton for like a week. Never played it again, lol” which is really relatable when it comes to a lot of live-service games.
The Destiny 2 group has its own narratives. Shaga ☁️🎮 wrote: “Started with D2 at launch!” while Georgiadawg824 confessed: “Started playing Destiny 2 about a month after release. A friend of mine begged me to play D1 but I was playing nothing but COD on my PlayStation and Xbox.”
