Destiny 2: Beyond Light launched on November 10th, 2020, and introduced some massive changes to the world of Destiny 2. Since I played on Xbox One, I was forced to wait five hours for a 65 gigabyte update to download. But it made sense, since they were introducing and removing so much content.

To start off, I created a Hunter class character, and jumped right into the New Light experience. Hunters are one of the three classes in Destiny, alongside Titan and Warlock. Hunters are based around precision, Titans around raw power and Warlocks around controlling the environment. New Light is the introduction to the game that all new players go through, on a character by character basis. Every time you made a new character, you went through it. Prior to Beyond Light, you would simply fight through a bunch of enemies, get a ship and be sent on your way to the rest of the game. However, with Beyond Light, that changed quite a bit.

I entered into the area known as Dock 13, which was where you would normally get your ship. Instead, I was greeted with a cutscene, and a new character: Shaw Han, a fellow Guardian who lost his fireteam. Over the course of the hours long New Light campaign, I was introduced to one of the new areas added into the game: The Cosmodrome, which was returning from Destiny. A cosmodrome is a Russian spaceport, from a time when Humanity was spread throughout the solar system. Now, it was in ruins, and home to two enemy factions: the Fallen House of Dusk and the Hive. Throughout the Cosmodrome these enemies would fight and serve as obstacles towards your progress to level up.

Eventually, after helping Shaw for a few hours of real time, I received a Sparrow. Think of it as a star wars style speeder bike. That is literally what it was. It allowed me to get around the place faster. Eventually, after a lot of shooting, I received a ship. Now, I would be able to leave the Cosmodrome and go to the Last City on Earth, home to the last colony of Humanity, and the Guardians that protected them.

Once I was done with the New Light experience, I hopped into the grind to get my Power Level up to 1150, from the starting base of 1050, in order to prepare for Beyond Light. Your Power is a measure of your gear, an average of the Power Levels on your gear, which is armor and weapons. For most of the activities in the game your Power Level doesn’t matter, but it does for certain endgame activities, mainly multiplayer. As I am a Titan main, titan being the class that likes to melee everything, I did this on my titan. Then, It was time to go to Europa.

Beyond Light is a story of twin sides and thin lines. Your guardian navigates their way through Europa and truly harnesses the power of Darkness through Stasis. On a titan, that is the Behemoth Subclass. Basically, slam your fist on the ground and freeze enemies. It all starts with you arriving on the icy moon, and hearing a distress call from Variks, Eliksni Rebel, warning you of Eramis, Kell of Darkness and of House Salvation. After that mission, adventure awaits as you take on Eramis Shipstealer’s House of Salvation and discover Stasis for yourself.