I had a baby nine months ago. As you might expect, this has significantly changed my relationship with video games, at least temporarily. It has made the Nintendo Switch my favorite console of all time, because I can play it both on the big screen on the occasional evening and in my hands during naptime/train journeys/stolen moments hiding in the bathroom whilst my partner deals with the baby. It has also drastically reduced the time available to me to play gamesāwhich, given that it is literally my job to know about games, is a smidge inconvenient.
This piece originally appeared on Kotaku UK 9/18/17.
Most of all it has erased my ability to join in with things like Destiny 2ātime-limited, communal gaming experiences that rely on having several hours of uninterrupted game time at specific moments of the day. The whole world seems to be experiencing the first weeks of this game together, and itās all passing me by. My friends and colleagues are all miles ahead of me in Destiny 2, prepping for raids and optimizing their gear whilst my very, very tired partner and I work our way through the story together. An old, dear pal gently declined my request to join his clan because I wonāt be playing it seriously enough, which although true is a pretty damning summary of my situation. Iām dead weight now. Iāll never catch up.
Before starting Destiny 2 last week, I had a read through Kirkās long and very useful Destiny 2 tips guide, and when I reached the sentence āAfter a couple of days, youāll probably only be equipping legendary and exotic gear,ā I made a noise that was kind of a combination of a bark of laughter and a despondent sigh. A couple of days? Iāve still got some green gear equipped, FFS. I nipped into the Crucible for the first time over the weekend and got totally monstered by a bunch of people with a power level of 250+. āThe gameās only been out for a week!ā I found myself yelling. āDonāt you people have jobs?ā (The irony, of course, is that the Crucible negates level advantages, so it should theoretically be one mode where not being able to play much shouldnāt make a huge difference. Unfortunately, Iām not very good.)
Speaking of the story, I have no idea whatās going on. I played quite a lot of Destiny, mostly because I have an older stepson who is obsessed with it and it was pretty much the only thing I could ever persuade him to play together, but the story and characters always sailed over me. I do know that there are aliens and that they have come to Earth and fucked with the Traveller but, beyond that, Iām just pointing my gun where Iām told to point it and having a good time.
After the second in-game cutscene, my partner turned to me and asked who all of the characters were. I realized that I mostly didnāt know, and then spent 20 minutes Googling all of it, which then meant we had to bail in the middle of the next mission because naptime was over. We now skip the cutscenes, because our playtime is so limited that we donāt have time to watch five minutes of earnest sci-fi proclamations that we donāt understand properly anyway. I love that the characters on the Farm have lots to say for themselves, but usually we have to cut them off and run to the next mission before the baby wakes up. I am more tired mercenary than heroic Guardian right now: where do you need me to go, what am I supposed to be doing, and how quickly can I get it done?
This is all especially annoying because Destiny 2 is properly good now, and I really wish I could be experiencing it with everyone else, rather than weeks late. (By contrast, I spent about 30 hours on Destiny in the first week and didnāt even particularly enjoy it, mostly because Destiny just wasnāt good until the Taken King. Itās true. Donāt fight it.) There are some things I know that Iāll never experience: I doubt Iāll ever make it through a raid, given the time and concentration required. Even if I did make it through a raid, somehow, there is no chance that Iād be able to find or appreciate all its many secrets. Our U.S. colleagues have called Destiny 2ās first raid the coolest thing that Bungie has made so far, and Iām never going to be able to play it. [U.S. editorās note: Theyāve soured on it some since playing more of it, since itās latter stages have some buggy and annoying encounters.]
My issue isnāt the time it takes to level up in Destiny 2, or to complete the campaign. Iāll get there, eventually, and Iām sure Iāll have fun along the way. But by then most of my friends will have moved on to something elseāyou get the Destiny megafans, but most people will play this for a month or two then get bored, maybe popping back for the DLC. The whole point of Destiny is as a shared social experience. So itās not just that Destiny requires this giant chunk of time upfront to get anywhere near the ārealā game, but that it requires it in a squeezed timeframe.
This runs through the whole structure. The requirement that a Raid must be completed before each Tuesdayās reset seems lavishly generous to the maniacs, but might as well be a sign saying ādonāt botherā for parents. Xurās weekly merry-go-round of treats is for people who can take the time to check him every week. Iām told that thereās a cavalcade of daily, weekly, location-based and other challenges unlocked at level 20 and it feels like Iām being showered with ice creams at the North Pole. Destiny doesnāt just want your time, it wants it now, and it wants it at regular intervals throughout the week. Who is doing the playing here?
Of course, none of us can play everything. We all have to pick and choose, especially between games that demand a huge chunk of time. Iāve managed to spend close to 100 hours each on BotW, Persona 5 and Stardew Valley this year, so Iām obviously not starved for brilliant video games. But theyāre singleplayer games I can play in little chunks. Destiny 2 represents another way of playing games that totally shuts out a large percentage of the populationāpeople with families, demanding jobs or other life stuff that they canāt ignore. More and more of the games industry is functioning like this, driven by the success of MOBAs, lessons learned from the age of MMOs, and games like Destiny that successfully combine the set-piece shooting that was once confined to single-player FPSs with the Skinner-box addictiveness of the loot cycle and a steady drip of new content. You have to give so much of your life to games like this. They are not there to fill odd moments, but EVERY moment.
Games like Destiny give you more back the more you put in. The in-jokes, the lore, the exotic gear and indeed everything beyond the moment-to-moment shooting only mean anything to people whoāve put a lot of hours in. I think that excludes me, now. This is hardly the worldās greatest tragedy; there are still hundreds of games a year that suit the way I can play. But Iām going to have to adjust to the fact that Destiny 2is not one of them.
This post originally appeared on Kotaku UK, bringing you original reporting, game culture and humour with a U from the British isles. Follow them on @Kotaku_UK
