When Destiny 2 launches later this year, it will be launching on PC as well as the PS4 and Xbox One. This will mark the first time Destiny will be available on a platform other than consoles so that is a big step to take. The last PC game for Bungie to solely develop for the PC was Oni in 2001 by Bungie West.
Unlike most games releasing on PC, this game will not be available on Steam but will instead be a Battle.net exclusive. Destiny 2 will become the first third-party title to be released for Blizzard’s platform. However, this does not mean Bungie will be piggybacking off Blizzard’s servers as they will still be using their own servers. Customer support and servers will both still be handled by Bungie.
The Blizzard partnership came as a result of saving Bungie the time to create a network client for Destiny 2. By offering the Activision published the title the chance to use Blizzard’s platform, the game could potentially release earlier. According to PC Gamer, we still don’t have a definitive release date for the PC locked down.
“We haven’t committed to a PC date yet,” said game director Luke Smith when we asked him directly after the reveal event. “At Bungie, we are totally committed to making the PC build as great as we can … and we want to make sure this version of the game has the time it needs to bake in the oven so it’s a delicious piece of bread when it comes out.”
When Destiny 2 was announced we were told that those who pre-order will get early access to a beta in the summer, which will be followed by an open beta. It’s unclear if this will include the PC version since the release date is still unknown.
We had a chance to sit down with Destiny 2’s PC Lead David Shaw and he confirmed the game will run with an uncapped framerate on PC, compared to being locked at 30 FPS on consoles. As of right now, there isn’t an option to lock the game at either 30 or 60 FPS but that is something they are looking into. The PC builds at the gameplay event were equipped with Intel’s newest Kaby Lake i7-7700k CPUs along with Nvidia’s GTX 1080Ti GPUs running on G-Sync monitors but Bungie doesn’t anticipate the specs being as high as that to run the game. Minimum and recommended specs aren’t yet available but if the PS4 Pro is able to run the game at 30 FPS in 4K, it doesn’t look like you’ll be needing a super powerful rig.
Shaw said part of the reasoning Destiny 2 will be appearing on the Battle.net platform is many of the developers at Bungie are huge fans of Blizzard games and vice-versa for Blizzard and Blizzard gave Activision and Bungie offered the platform to Destiny 2.
Destiny 2 on consoles has a pretty robust achievement and trophy system on their respective consoles and Battle.net currently doesn’t have a system like that implemented but no details could be shared regarding the PC version having a system like that in place.
Sony does still have the partnership with Destiny 2 that will allow PS4 players to get exclusive content first but, like with Destiny 1, players will still be able to get this content on PC and Xbox One, just further down the line.
PC controls were Destiny 2 are much like you’d expect a PC game to be. Players will have the option to completely rebind their keys to something else so everything on the controls front is fully customizable. We have a full range of customizable options also available for the graphics settings. We didn’t think to snap a picture of the settings at the event but luckily PC Gamer managed to grab one. You see we have a wide variety of options ranging from AA support to whatever Wind Impulse is. An adjustable Field of View slider isn’t in the current build but Shaw confirmed it will be in the final product.
PC Gamer
Another thing to look forward to on the PC version is the inclusion of text chat. Voice chat will probably still be needed to coordinate high-level raids but if MMOs have gotten by with text chat for all these years, Destiny 2 might be able to do the same thing.
All in all, Destiny 2 looks like it will be a great experience on PC. We actually got a hands-on look at the PC version playing a PvP match, a Strike and the first campaign level and we were pretty impressed.
‘Destiny 2’ Gameplay Reveal: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know
Everything you need to know about Destiny 2's livestream.
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