Destiny 2 guide: walkthroughs, tips, Exotics and everything else you need today

By Staff

Destiny 2 is finally here, and just as beautifully baffling as its precursor. Don’t worry, cats; we got what you need.

Our Destiny 2 guide is divided into segments so you can get to what you want, fast. Let’s start off with a quick contents list and then jump right in.

First, we’ll post some general guides on Destiny 2’s systems and a handful of essential tips. Next, we’ll offer detailed class and subclass guides. Scroll a little further, and you’ll find a nice big section on weapons, armour and Exotics, since Destiny is forever a loot game.

Next up we have walkthroughs and other detailed drill-down guides for particular missions and topics. Below that, you’ll find information specific to the PC version of Destiny 2. Finally, we’ll round up some recent feature coverage so you’ve got something to read on the subway or in the office when you can’t actually play Destiny 2. No no, don’t thank us; it’s all part of the service.

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General guides

How to level up fast
Pretty self-explanatory, this page explains the levelling system, outlining the soft and hard caps, and explaining just what you need to do to make your Guardian as strong as can be. It breaks the journey down into three stages, and provides suggestions for the best activities to pursue at each level. It also offers cautions and warnings to prevent you wasting resources you’ll want when you approach endgame. Things have changed a little since D1, so you might want to check in even if you’re an old hand.

What class should I pick?
Oh, you just can’t decide! Titans are so strong and tough. Hunters are so dashing. Warlocks are unstoppable rabid kill machines who definitely need a nerf. How could you possibly choose between them? The answer lies in comparing their skills – especially their class abilities and jumps! – but yes, also their outfits. We’ve got advice about which playstyle may suit you, based on your past preferences in other games, as well as a rundown of the differences and what sort of powers are waiting for you. We live to serve, soon-to-be Guardians.

How to unlock new subclasses
We’ve linked this down below in our class and subclass guide section, but it’s probably something you’ll want to know right off the bat. You start Destiny 2 proper with access to just one subclass, and must unlock the other two within your class as you play through the game. How? Well, that would be telling now, wouldn’t it. Why don’t you click that link. Ooh, the shiny link. Come on, games journos need to eat and make rent, just like everyone else.

Activities: how you unlock and complete Flashpoints, Lost Sectors, Milestones, Challenges and more
This page lists and describes all the different Activities in Destiny 2, which offers a great deal more than a story campaign and PvP modes. Here you’ll find out what all those words like Flashpoint, Challenge and Milestone mean, and why you should bother trying your hand at them. You’ll also discover how and where to unlock each of these Activities, and how to complete them once you can dive on in. Useful clarifications for returning players, and essential explanations for newbies since Destiny 2 kind of never explains anything.

How to complete Public Events, trigger Heroic objectives, and get the best loot
Public Events are a much bigger part of Destiny 2 than D1. There are a lot of reasons to participate, and some tasty rewards on offer. If you can get a crew together, you can try going for a Heroic version and score some tasty stuff. We explain how to complete the events in both the normal and Heroic method, and give a few pointers for those apparently baffled by what ominous red circles on the ground mean. For heaven’s sake.

Bright Engrams: here’s how much Silver costs, and what you can buy with it
Eververse, the microtransaction store, is back in Destiny 2. Its primary function is to sell and decrypt Bright Engrams, and this page outlines what those are, what’s in them, how to get them for free and what it’ll cost you to purchase them with your precious real-world funds. There’s also some info on how to get hold of individual bits of cosmetic goodness, if RNGesus has been unkind to you.

Error codes and issues, and how to deal with them
Alas, the course of true love never did run smoothly. Sometimes little niggles get in the way of your obsessive 2,000 loot-and-shoot. We’re keeping tracks of Destiny 2 error codes, and will let you know when Bungie fixes them, or what workarounds and solutions are available in the meantime. This is a great place to complain about ebing stuck in a server queue, too; we expect this weekend to be pretty busy in that regard.

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Destiny 2 classes and subclasses

All three original classes return in Destiny 2 – Hunter, Warlock and Titan – and each will have three subclass options you can unlock and switch between at will. The three classes and their skill trees have been overhauled. Each of three classes now has a unique class skill shared across all subclasses, which comes in two variants.

Warlocks can conjure a Rift that continually heal or buff teammates.
Titans can place Barriers to provide total shelter or tactical cover with ammo.
Hunters can perform a Dodges that reload their weapon or increase melee energy.

In addition to these class abilities, each of the three Destiny 2 classes has its own style of mobility (jump) ability. Each of the nine subclasses has a unique super ability, grenade choices and two different passive upgrade paths. You can switch between your various abilities at will once you have unlocked them.

There are nine subclasses in Destiny 2 – three for each class. This total includes three brand new subclasses added with Destiny 2, while the remaining six subclasses return from vanilla Destiny and expansion The Taken King.

The new Hunter subclass is called Arkstriker. The super summons a staff of Arc. The new Warlock subclass is Dawnblade. The super summons a sword of Solar. The new Titan subclass is Sentinel. The super summons a Void shield.

Which class should you choose? Well, consult our guide to picking a Destiny 2 class for more information. As for subclasses, you may want to check out our guide to unlocking subclasses in Destiny 2. Oh, and speaking of subclasses, do read on…

We’ve put together detailed guides on every subclass in Destiny 2. These guides list every skill and passive ability, giving you full details so you can plan your build and co-ordinate with your buddies for co-op.

Where possible, these pages includes gameplay footage of the subclass in action, so you can see how your chosen Guardian will play in Destiny 2. However, we also have a guide to using Supers effectively in Destiny 2, since once again the game doesn’t really bother to explain how the damn things work.

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Destiny 2 Exotics, weapons and armour

The guides in this section are all about equipment, providing both a basic explanation of Destiny 2’s somewhat esoteric weapon system as well as pointing you towards Exotic gear. For many D1 players, collecting a full set of Exotics was their primary goal, and while it’s not the only one worth pursuing, there are definite advantages to having a shiny arsenal to draw on. The details on these pages are the seeds of unstoppable builds; Destiny 2 is an RPG as well as a shooter and a loot roulette, remember.

Complete weapons guide
Listen, it’s really not clear in-game what exactly the different between kinetic, energy and power weapons is, but it turns out they have very different uses, and knowing what does best where will really up your game. We sort all that out on this guide page, hopefully in a clear and concise manner, and also talk about the different rarity tiers, upgrading and more. Much of this information also applies to armour, but we know you’re in it for the boomsticks, so.

All 19 Exotic weapons (so far)
Ahh, now we’re talking! Collecting Exotics is one of the most fun aspects of Destiny 2’s loot cycle, and there are some really interesting weapons on offer. You can only equip one Exotic weapon at a time, but each one can have a profound impact on how you approach the game and build out your character. This page lists and fully details all the basic Exotics you’ll find as story quest rewards and in random drops – if you’ve been very good, and RNGesus loves you – and will update as quests unlock and other mysteries are resolved.

Exotic armour mega list
Although you’ll find more detailed Exotic armour guide pages just below, this top level overview shows off all the Exotic armour available across all three classes in Destiny 2 – well, the ones available freely at release, at any rate. You can use it as a collection checklist, if you like, or just to have a browse. Looking for a specific class’s Exotics? Just scroll ever so slightly downwards, there’s a clever little Guardian.

Exotic armour guide: Hunters
Each class has access to a different set of Exotic armour pieces, and this collection of helmets, gauntlets, chest armour, leg armour and cloaks are all for our nimble, deadly Hunter friends. Embrace the dodge, master the snipe, become one with hipfire dial up your DPS, maximise your speed, track your enemies, go sneaky, go loud, go high, go low … whatever you have in your insomniac little heart, there’s a Hunter Exotic waiting, just for you.

Exotic armour guide: Titans
Be big. Be bold. Be brave. Be an Exotic clad Titan. The helmets, gauntlets, chest armour, leg armour and marks in this little catalogue of Exotic death work with the Titan’s strengths in interesting ways. Whether you’re aiming to increase your tankiness to unstoppable force levels, or boost your damage output to make your buddies green with envy. Whether you want to minimise your agility issues, or buff up your natural compatibility with heavy weapons. Oh yes. It’s all here. Enjoy.

Exotic armour guide: Warlocks
The official VG247 stance on Warlocks is that they should be nerfed into sand, because they keep beating Brenna up in the Crucible – but bias aside the Warlock class has always been about channeling tricky build synergies in ways that come to life in the hands of skilled players. Exotics? They just make this easier. Choose from helmets, gauntlets, chest armour, leg armour and bonds as you put together something horribly OP that will make everyone else cry “Bungie plz” when ever patch fails to eradicate it.

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Walkthroughs, secrets and specific topics

This section is where we’ll gather walkthroughs and guides that don’t fit elsewhere – things players have asked for, things we found tricky and wanted some help with, or just had lying around after the beta and didn’t want to let go of. We hope to update and expand this section with all sorts of detailed information, just as soon as we find anything in Destiny 2 we can’t solve using our good looks and charm alone. It won’t take long, unfortunately.

Red War Mission 01: Homecoming
We don’t think you’ll need your hand held through every mission in destiny 2’s story campaign, but if this is your first time playing Destiny 2 then a little guidance may be appreciated. We produced this walkthrough for the beta, in which it appeared, and will scurry around to adapt it for the full game – we certainly don’t expect to have an Exotic weapon handed over in the first mission! Nor to be wandering around at max level immediately afterwards, come to think of it. We were spoiled, and now we must repent.

The Inverted Spire (Strike)
There are a handful of Strikes in Destiny 2 – lengthy missions designed for three-player co-op, with bosses and byzantine encounters along the way. Join the Strike playlist queue and muddle along if you dare, but this guide to The Inverted Spire, the Strike featured in the beta, is a good place to start if you want to know what might be expected of you by those rando blueberries you matchmake with. Knowing the mechanics ahead of time can be a big help, and learning to play through one Strike equips you to work out the others.

This Destiny 2 Easter egg gives you super high jumps around the Farm
The first cute little secret to be unearthed by Destiny 2 players involves completing a strange ritual on the Farm in order ot make yourself look super rad in front of all the newbs running around who don’t check the Internet often enough to know how to do it. This is living, isn’t it? You may choose to pass the knowledge on or just hoard it to your miserly self as you like; we took the high road.

How to get your Kill-Tracker Ghost, Coldheart Exotic trace rifle, and other pre-order and bonus goodies
You should in no way fash yourself, dear heart; you are far from the only Guardian running around Destiny 2 asking where the hell the stuff you paid for is. Bungie hasn’t made it obvious how to get at the things you can have right away, and has barricaded the rest of it behind content gates. Don’t worry though, we know how to smash through and claim what’s rightfully yours … eventually.

How to get a Sparrow
Sick of walking around? Yeah, Bungie’s boasts of making bigger environments sounded really good before you realise you weren’t going to get a Sparrow in the opening few missions. Sparrows are Destiny 2’s mount analogue – a personal vehicle for getting around the landscape before you die of starvation, and you’ll want one much sooner than Bungie intends to hand one over. Sadly, you’ll have to wait, like a muggins. Boo!

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Destiny 2 on PC: system requirements and more

Destiny 2 doesn’t arrive on PC until October 24, but in the meantime, our patient Guardian friends have questions that need answering. We’ve included the PC controls for Destiny 2 in the image above, which is a good starting point, but everything else you need to know can be found below.

Recommended system specs
Bungie has not yet provided full and final system requirements for Destiny 2 on PC, but we have three good indicators to draw on. First, it gave minimum and recommended specifications for the beta – which looked and ran beautifully even at bottom spec, by the way. Second, we know what kind of equipment Bungie used to run Destiny 2 when it showed off spectacular 4K gameplay footage at the gameplay reveal event. Finally, Bungie gave some “guidance” on what sort of spec you might want to pursue if you plan to upgrade your rig. All of that info is here.

Overlays, comms and capture
The Destiny 2 PC client won’t play nicely with various common tools of the trade, so if you’re planning on using third-party apps to chat with your pals, capture footage or measure performance, you should read this page in full. It’s all about preventing cheating, naturally, and not too onerous once you understand what Destiny 2 will and won’t support. The good news is Destiny 2 has some built-in features like an FPS counter to compensate.

PC settings menu
Although Bungie has brought in Vicarious Visions to develop the PC version, you’d be forgiven for suspicions that we might get dodgy PC support. That’s been the industry standard for many years now, hasn’t it? Anyway, it looks like Bungie is making a real effort at the very least – just check out the settings menu, as seen in the beta. If the full game lives up to this level of customisation, we’re in for a treat.

Sign up for Blizzard’s Battle.net
Destiny 2 won’t be on Steam; you’ll need a Battle.net account to enjoy it on PC. This page explains all about that, and guides you to setting up a Battle.net account, downloading its desktop client, and resigning yourself to accepting Blizzard’s technology in your life. Really, it’s a good thing; Blizzard has established infrastructure Bungie can draw on, and hopefully that Diablo 3 disaster taught everyone a lesson.

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