Helldivers 2

Well, I’ll tell you about D2, although as a long term D2 player I don’t think the recent content is great, but there’s still plenty of great content to catch up on.

Destiny 2 is a sci-fi/fantasy (laser guns with magic, kinda like Star Wars) FPS MMO, made by the OG Halo devs. The plot is you play in the solar system post-apocalypse as immortal warriors (“guardians”) defending the remnants of humanity from extraterrestrial threats.

1. The vast majority of the game is designed for 1-3 players, with some content that is meant to be done solo, and some content that is meant for a team of 6.
2. You can help your friend catch up by playing their missions.
3. This is the tough one. Several of the older campaigns have been “vaulted” meaning you can’t play them anymore. They added a mini-campaign tutorial, which is something, but isn’t as good as the OG campaign. However, some of the best content is still in the game. The main issue is it may be difficult piecing together the overarching plot. Also the most recent update was kinda controversial, but that shouldn’t be something you have to worry about while catching up on older content.
4. It’s mostly static missions, but with some content that’s meant to be repeatable. Some of the repeatable content is doing a randomly chosen static mission, possibly with modifiers that make it more difficult. Some intentionally repeatable missions are closer to the “kill random enemies” type but not nearly to the extent of other games. There’s also the “loot grind” which is that weapons and armor you get have random rolls (in the form of stats on the armor, and “perks” on the weapons). This way, even if you get two copies of the same item, it may still be valuable because you might like the new copy better than the previous. Gradually over playing the game you will develop favorites.
5. Huge build diversity and it’s constantly changing. There are 3 classes with 6 subclasses each with a variety of builds you can make for each subclass. You equip 3 weapons at at a time and there’s a huge variety and you’ll probably want to change it up depending on the situation. You will likely end up making multiple builds, but there is absolutely room for favorites and staples.

If this sounds interesting to you, try playing for free first (do the tutorial, unlock the 3 main subclasses, get the exotic weapon “Riskrunner”, and do the catch-up story missions in the timeline).

Then if you are still interested, do the DLC campaigns, probably in this order:

• Shadowkeep (optional)
• Beyond Light
• Witch Queen
• Lightfall
• The Final Shape

Other DLCs to look at:

• Forsaken (doesn’t add a campaign but does add an area to explore and some interesting missions and sidequests)
• 30th anniversary pack (doesn’t add a campaign but adds a couple missions, and is mostly centered around giving you crossover loot from Bungie’s previous games, in particular, Halo)
• The Edge of Fate (the latest campaign, but I strongly recommend you do all the other campaigns first)
• Year of Prophecy (includes the latest campaign and pre-order of the next one which is coming in about 6 months, but again, I strongly recommend you catch up on the older content before buying the new stuff)

You can also play the og Destiny (Destiny 1 as opposed to Destiny 2) which is a bit simpler but is in a more complete state (they’ve stopped adding content and tweaking it, but they haven’t removed content like they did in Destiny 2).