Destiny: Rising Changed My Mind On Mobile Games

The beauty of a Venus Fly Trap.

by Cassius Kent

Destiny: Rising, developed by NetEase, who at this point, has done multiple games in the genre of getting kids addicted to rolling the dice.

This one comes wrapped in a flavor that I happen to like; that is Destiny.

Me pa always said, “If it walked like a duck, talked like a duck, acted like duck, then it’s dinner.”

And I have to be honest with you, I was eating good during the duration of Alpha.

It should come as no great surprise that I am an avid Destiny player, if you have been following me for years. Sorry about that. The fact remains, Destiny is one of my mainstay games for a reason. Despite all of its faults.

Despite Bungie’s insistence in doing everything in their power to make changes to the game that they believe is best for the player, when there are many arguments to be made to the contrary.

People accuse the Destiny player base of not knowing what it wants, and some of those arguments do have merits. “Listen to fans” can only go so far, because in case you haven’t noticed: Fans of anything, not just Destiny, are kinda dumb.

We all think we know what is best for whatever game we have spent hundreds of hours in, and we often find ourself asking “Who wanted this?” whenever a particular change makes its way through. Odds are good that we wanted that exact change, we just didn’t realize it.

Sometimes though, sometimes the fans get it right.

I won’t bore you with the details, but the above loot started a huge conspiracy in the Destiny community called, stupidly, “Weight Gate.” It was an instance of the community being 100% right about something Bungie, repeatedly denied. It made all the worse people you know very happy to smugly be correct.

I’m sure other games that people “main” have their own community wide problems. Be it in game, or the developer handing out radioactive yikes like it’s cotton candy at the state fair, something always comes out.

Enough of those things come up that eventually push long time players like me away. It isn’t only that the game is getting stale and long in the tail. It isn’t only the developers and publishers trying their darnedest to get new people to play, at the cost of making changes veterans can’t abide by. Or worse, inventing new things for the sole purpose of artificially inflating how long people have to play to get to their desired goal.

All that to say, I wanted something similar, yet fresh and engaging. Enter Destiny: Rising.

Built from the ground up for mobile phones, there was zero chance I wasn’t going to play the alpha. I signed up immediately, without knowing much about the game, or having any experience playing mobile games.

Before, the only other game I played “seriously” on mobile was Wild Rift. I was hooked for about a month straight, waking up every morning to get a few games in before work, or playing a few before bed. I didn’t take Wild Rift seriously, however, as I simply viewed it as League of Legends: Lite. Or League of Legends: It Takes A Lot More Effort To Flame Because You’re Playing Horizontally On Your Phone.

I took a different approach with Destiny: Rising. I didn’t simply view it as Destiny At Home. As my friend pointed out, I already had Destiny At Home: It’s called Destiny 2.

I played Destiny: Rising as if it were it’s own thing, because apart from a few guns, names, and locations, Destiny: Rising IS it’s own thing.

For one, it’s a gacha game. Gambling by a way more sinister and sanitized name. That alone should and would make it a non-starter for many players.

I won’t mince words here; the gacha portion of this game- the gacha portion of ANY game- is wildly predatory and is designed to take advantage of vulnerable people. It is the worst part of the game, hands down.

On the surface it seems fine, but even going one layer further to the core and fine polish starts to rust. The game, even in alpha, really beckons you to open the wallet (Swiping the card was disabled during my playtime, but all the mechanisms for spending money were in there). There are myriad of things to pay for including: Pulls, battle pass, cosmetics, items to make the game less grindy, and a thirty day pass that if you log in every day, you get gems towards the loot boxes. Don’t miss a day though, or you lose your pass. So you better be a good boy and log in every day.

I can go on and on about how predatory all of these practices are, it’s not good, not great, and it will likely never be better. It’s too effective, and once suits find something that squeezes players tight enough, they are very unlikely to let it go.

In spite of all that, in spite of the game being designed to take advantage of people like me, I played every day for the duration of the alpha in enjoyed every hour I spent playing the game.

The game, at it’s core, is a very fun, very competent, Destiny game. I bought a controller for the purpose, because I knew there would be no way I was going to play an FPS with my fingers. People than can do that, and do it well, are braver than the troops.

The characters were all unique, and fun to play. The game looked and felt like the Destiny I am use to, in a setting that I have never been in. There were series staples like strikes and Crucible, but there were also new modes like Shifting Gates and a rogue-like mode designed for the purpose of BEING a rogue-like, and not just tacked on as an afterthought as Bungie’s rogue-like attempts felt like in Destiny 2.

There was also the return of a fan favorite mode in Sparrow Racing, something fans have been on their hands and knees begging for since Destiny 1. Those fans don’t know they actually don’t want sparrow racing back, nor that it’s a wildly expensive mode to invest in, with little to no return on that investment, but they have it here in Destiny: Rising.

If it wasn’t for the gacha portion of this game, and make no mistake, rolling on characters is a big part of it, Destiny: Rising would be exactly what I want out of a Destiny sequel.

New engaging modes, weapons, and abilities.

My time with the alpha made also made me realize I was a huge snob when it came to mobile games.

Wrong headed and stupid as it may be, I never considered mobile games to be “real” games. I always immediately checked out of a game the second I heard it was mobile only.

Over the years that snobbishness simmered to a quiet “not for me.” It was always still there to the back of my mind, but letting people enjoy things you don’t enjoy comes with growing up, I’ve learned. I never thought I would on the other side of the mobile game fence, where I could not only enjoy one, but see that yes, these games ARE “real” games. Made by dozens of people who are more or less proud of all the work they did to get a video game- which is basically magic- to function on the psychic damage box that goes into your pocket.

Since the alpha has ended, I have still been using my Backbone to play my console games on my phone, as I don’t always want to sit on the couch to play. I have also been looking into playing other mobile only games when none of the other game I want to play fill the void in my heart, or quiets the voices in my head.

Finding something to play and enjoy is so hard these days, especially in the era of massive open worlds with a million waypoints and markers, limiting ourselves to solely console and PC games seems like an unforced error.

The games you want to play are out there, and if you broaden your horizons, you might find the perfect one for you.

Mobile games aren’t better or worse than their console counterparts. They are merely different. They aren’t “good for a mobile game.” Try are simply good.

Give them a try. They may surprise you.

Take care.