Five years ago, Destiny launched and quickly gathered a large fanbase. We wanted to know what personal stories and memories the community has with Bungie’s MMO shooter. Read about the unique moments that many guardians especially remember!

Kids, how time flies! We have been playing in the sci-fi universe of Destiny for over five years now. By now, most fans of the Bungie shooter have probably switched to Destiny 2 and are currently enjoying the new expansion Shadowkeep .

Either way, the anniversary is a good reason for us to let the community speak up. Because it is they who have made the Destiny franchise great. 

To get a good cross-section of opinions, we searched our private PSN friends list for Destiny players and also listened online, including launching a call in the largest German Facebook group Destiny Deutschland .

Additionally, we also inquired via Twitter about the highlights that are still unforgettable for Destiny players. 

The response was incredible! We are impressed by the passion and dedication with which Destiny players have processed their experiences in written form or shared them with us in personal conversations. However, it was also noticeable that most guardians especially fondly remember Destiny 1.

Apparently, many fans believe that the first Destiny was the better game (and perhaps still is). Furthermore, it should be noted that Destiny 2 had a rough start and some players dropped off at launch. The game polarized even among the MeinMMO readers after release.

A note: Unfortunately, we could not consider all submissions, chats, and conversations due to space constraints. However, we believe that our selection is representative and that every Destiny player can remember very similar moments. 

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We thank all participants for their time and effort. Now enjoy the highlights of the Destiny community!

The Glass Chamber: Brilliant debut raid in Vanilla Destiny

One of the biggest highlights of Destiny 1 for many players was the first raid “The Glass Chamber“, which offered a dense atmosphere, beautifully designed boss fights, and tricky jumping passages. 

Especially the final boss Atheon has burned itself into the memories of the players. “When the last shot fell, Atheon finally fell after many hours, and we could grab legendary or even exotic loot… That was the most frustrating but at the same time the coolest experience of my gaming career,” says Diego H.  

Experiencing MMORPG mechanics in first-person perspective was a really great feeling – even though I belonged to the famous ‘Forever Level 29’ club thanks to the luck-based loot system.

Lars K.

Crota solo: Popular challenge

In general, the raids from Destiny 1 were often mentioned by the community as highlights. This includes “Crota’s End” from the first expansion “Darkness Awaits“. 

While the Crota raid could indeed be a tough nut in the later released heroic difficulty, it was also designed quite compactly. Many players did not see this as a disadvantage, but rather as an advantage: Well-coordinated fireteams completed it in half an hour and then blessed their alts with loot. Furthermore, “Crota’s End” was practically the only Destiny raid that you could also completely conquer alone. 

For Artur S., it was a great goal at the time to complete the Crota raid solo: “It was April 9, 2015 (…). I took my best weapons, mainly the Icebreaker, my beloved Hunter, and plunged into the dark abyss. Everything went super. Of course, there were a few unnecessary deaths, for example, from cursed thralls.

At the end, I stood before him: Crota, son of Oryx. It was a strenuous fight. The biggest difficulty here was finding the perfect moment to become invisible. After some attempts, I succeeded. Crota fell, and I received my future favorite weapon: ‘The Last Word'”. 

After over eight hours, Crota fell in hard mode, and finally the ‘Crota’s Curse’ dropped. That was around 4 am. I joyfully shouted loud enough to wake up my entire apartment building!

Christiano S.

Kingsfall Raid: Joy after First Kill of the Witches and Oryx

Besides the Crota raid, “Kingsfall” from the XXL Destiny expansion “The Taken King” was very popular within the community. This long raid shone through sophisticated mechanics and required particularly good team play. 

Especially with the Witches, as Thomas S. vividly remembers: “Towards the end of Year 2, I was so practiced in the Oryx raid that I could occasionally help complete the raid with completely foreign groups. With one group, we struggled for hours to reach the two Witches, the last test before boss Oryx. They defeated us a few times very closely, it was late at night and patience was becoming an increasingly rare commodity within our team. 

Then things got really dramatic. We fired at the second Witch and already heard her death scream. However, she simultaneously unleashed her final offensive and killed our entire team in one hit. The respawn countdown began, the screen went black, and the exhausted groans of my teammates echoed through the party chat.

Then I pressed ‘LB’ and ‘RB’ simultaneously, triggered a familiar hiss, and the screen brightened again. My Warlock activated ‘Revive’, came back to life, and caused ecstatic screaming in the party. The evening was saved, the stage completed. We decided to save Oryx for another night.”

But even the big boss Oryx himself was a tough nut – especially in the Challenge Mode in the heroic difficulty.

“We spent over six hours at Oryx plus Challenge back then because we all wanted the helmet and the ship. In the end, it worked out,” recalls Christiano S.

Nothing feels as good in gaming as completing a tough raid in a group.

Daniel L.

Even more dramatic is Daniel L.’s description of his Oryx first kill: “I remember how we went on for hours and hours, and it was always only minor things that caused our attempts to fail; we got Oryx down quite a way.

And then, just before we could enter the final damage phase, one of the platform players made a big blunder (four people had to stand on platforms while one dealt with adds below and one had to take care of a jumping part, note: editor): He fell off the platform without enemy interaction simply because he took a small step too far forward. Phase gone, attempt failed; there was a brief period of embarrassed silence in the chat, somewhere between 1 and 2 AM.

He apologized multiple times, even though no one blamed him. Someone just said: ‘No matter, we will do this now!’ Two attempts later, Oryx was down – and I can still remember how I jumped up in joy and relief!”

The eternal hunt for the Gjallarhorn 

What many players also associate with Destiny: the hunt for a certain, particularly coveted weapon. And there were quite a few of those in the history of Destiny – such as the fusion rifle Vex Mythoclast, the sniper rifle Icebreaker, or the temporarily overpowered hand cannon Dorn in PvP. But nothing, absolutely nothing compares to the legendary status of the rocket launcher Gjallarhorn!

Interestingly, the exotic vendor Xur already offered the weapon in the second week after the release of Destiny. However, at that time, no one knew that the weapon would develop into the overpowering all-rounder in the first year of Destiny, which is why many saved their precious coins instead.

This would unfortunately backfire for some guardians, as Xur did not have the Gjallarhorn in stock again for months and thus one was dependent on loot luck to obtain the weapon.

The Gjallarhorn. Finally, it was mine! Thank you, Crota.

Lars K.

A major loot misfortunate was – aside from the author of these lines – also Daniel L., who played hundreds of hours of all endgame activities of Destiny, but simply never got the pleasure of the weapon. The joy was even greater when one day it finally happened. 

“By now, two expansions for Destiny had been released, and I had fought my way through literally more than a hundred raid runs without any Gjallarhorn. About a month before the release of ‘The Taken King’, a usual raid with clan friends. ‘The Glass Chamber’, done countless times, nothing special anymore, but always fun.

Shortly after the Templar, before the Labyrinth of Gorgons, a chest that could always drop exotics. Every Destiny veteran knows it. I remember exactly how I said: ‘It won’t drop anything.’ And just one second later, the Gjallarhorn icon appeared at the top right of my screen!

Controller thrown away, jumped up from the sofa, cheers in the living room! Two weeks later, the “Horn” was available again for purchase from Xur. But who cares? The moment was worth it!”

I believe that after the tenth Atheon kill, my Vex Mythoclast finally dropped. I hit the table with joy so hard that it broke apart.

Christiano S.

The social component: One for all, all for one

Many players of Destiny 1 and 2 have emphasized to us the strong cohesion within the community and mention this as another highlight of their guardian career.

“For me, one of the highlights of the Destiny games is meeting many different people who all have the same love for the game,” says Alexander S. about the Destiny community. “My clan, for example, is a mixed bag, but we all stick together super well.”

Markus F. can also confirm this. “Especially in the first two years after the release of Destiny, the community was fantastic. I always found like-minded players on Facebook to play heroic strikes, raids, or PvP together.”

“Destiny united people,” says Christiano S. as well. “Kurds and Turks play together, Serbs and Croats. Everyone in harmony, with respect, and for the same goal.”

All the rest: Skolas, The Trials of Osiris, and Co.

The highlights mentioned so far are, of course, just a small part of what Destiny players connect with their favorite MMO. Because there is so much more.

For example, “The Prison of Elders“, a challenging three-player activity that Bungie introduced with the second expansion “House of Wolves“, along with the popular PvP event “The Trials of Osiris”.

“For most players, the ‘Trials of Osiris’ must have been the highlight of the second Destiny add-on, but for me, it was the showdown in ‘The Prison of Elders’ with Skolas,” says Lars K. “This raid substitute for three players was not only mechanically demanding at the time, but also the coordination in the smaller fireteam was a real challenge. To this day, I have never been happier about a victory in any boss fight than I was back then with Skolas!”

For Daniel L., however, visiting the Lighthouse for the first time was “one of the hardest-won triumphs in Destiny.” This exclusive social space could only be visited (and enjoyed epic loot there) if you had achieved nine victories in PvP in “The Trials of Osiris” in a three-person team.

“With a team of two buddies who played significantly better than me, we often got to seven or eight wins, but we were always missing that damned last one. Deeply frustrated, I had already given up. A week later, it was finally time: I had suffered for it – and was so happy when I could finally see the Lighthouse with my own eyes!” recalls Daniel L.

In addition, many players also remember numerous little things that made Destiny 1 special: the dance parties in the Tower, Sparrow races, or the box of raisins from Eris during the first Halloween event (which was even picked up again the following year as a running gag).

But even smaller in-game events like “Weapon Day” or the Faction Rally, where you could earn glory and honor for your faction and be rewarded with appropriate gear and weapons, are still missed in Destiny 2. “I hope that such small but fine additions will find their way back into Destiny 2 soon,” says Lars K.

And what about Destiny 2?

Speaking of Destiny 2: As mentioned at the beginning, the community is apparently emotionally much stronger connected to the first Destiny. Nevertheless, there are also players who can find a lot of positives in the successor.

“I’m glad that I can reach max level in Destiny 2 without any problems without raiding,” explains Christiano S. “And also, a lot has been done for solo play – I don’t have to dedicate myself fully to the game to make progress.”

For Lars K., the better story of Destiny 2 is a highlight: “The narrative quality of the Vanilla campaign was significantly better than that of Destiny 1. I will probably never forget the first time I saw ‘The Last City’ from afar while listening to the song ‘Journey‘ from the official soundtrack. To this day, a real goosebumps moment!”

What personal highlights do you associate with Destiny 1 and Destiny 2? Let us know in the comments!

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