As you might’ve guessed from my previous post on the subject, I’m an avid Destiny player. I picked up the game at launch and play it for a couple hours at a time at least 4-5 times a week (I have an incredibly understanding girlfriend). In my previous post I discussed how much I enjoy the game, as well as my feelings of disappointment towards certain aspects of it. An incredibly vocal group of Destiny players have been calling Bungie out of late in regards to content (or a lack thereof) and them introducint DLC. A great many of them end with a statement that they’re going to be picking up Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare when it comes out and that they’re leaving Destiny for it. As such, I decided to compare the two using the most recent game, Call of Duty: Ghosts, and decided that they’re welcome to leave, but history shows that they’d be getting the short end of the stick. Now I’ve played both games extensively and, with the exception of the last 2, purchased Ghost’s DLC packs. My 2 big categories of comparison are Launch Content and DLC content/price.
Content at Launch:
Call of Duty: Ghosts
Average Duration of Single Player: 3-5 hours.
Number of Multiplayer PvP Maps: 14
Number of PvP Game Modes: 15 (although each are variations on a couple basic themes)
Destiny
Average Duration of Single Player: 10-13 Hours
Number of Multiplayer PvP Maps: 11
Number of PvP Game Modes: 6
Winner – Depends on player preferance
Well, this one’s a more based on your gamestyle. If you prefer co-op missions and duration of game, Destiny wins due to a longer campaign mode and the ability to co-op. Unfortunately, the disconnection between missions, ability to run them out of order, and mild repetition causes the game’s MMO referances to show and serves to make the story a little disconnected and hard to follow but being able to run them co-op makes them entertaining by having your friends there. However, if you prefer PvP CoD:G wins due to the larger number of maps and increased number of game modes.
DLC:
Call of Duty: Ghosts
Price of DLC: $14.99 Individually or all 4 as part of the Season Pass for $50 total (or $12 apiece).
Content of DLC: 4 PvP maps, 1 storyline for Extinction (equal to a Destiny Raid), 1 gun
Additional DLC: Skin packs could be bought for $2.99 apiece that would change how your guns and emblems looked. This was purely cosmetic and had no impact on the game.
Destiny
Price of DLC: $20 individually or $30-$32 as part of the Expansion Pass ($15-$16 apiece)
Content of DLC: If The Dark Below is any indication, each DLC will contain 5 story missions, 3 PvP maps, 1 Strike (or two if you’re on PlayStation), 1 Raid, 6 sets of armor (2 for each class, one raid and one from Eris), 8 weapons, and 3 ships (cosmetic feature for now).
Additional DLC: None announced, but Bungie said in an interview there might be DLC themed weapon/armor packs, but they’ll never be stronger than what you get for free in the core game, just different looking, thus preventing a pay-to-win
Winner – Destiny
While the DLC of CoD:G is cheaper, it contains far less content than the Destiny DLC does.
While I can understand the frustration of paying for content after getting the game, Destiny was always intended to expand beyond launch. Just look at now popular MMOs like WoW and you can see how they started relatively small and repetitive and, after quite a few paid expansions, wound up huge and versatile. Destiny is just going to be one of those games that needs time to see if we’re just going to get fed the same old crap over and over or if it can truly become the epic game that Bungie believes it will be.