The expansive Destiny universe, the bombastic and expensive cutscenes, and the AAA presentation. Is Destiny: Rising a new milestone in the franchise’s history? If you consider a typical mobile gacha-grinder a new milestone, then yes. Why Destiny: Rising disappoints despite all its ambitions—we’ll explore in our article.
Mobile games currently account for approximately half of the entire gaming market—on par with PC and console games combined. Yet these two worlds—mobile games and projects for “adult” platforms—seldom intersect. Mobile games rarely migrate to PCs and consoles, hampered by their gameplay, which is tailored for short sessions and touch controls. Until recently, when franchises known from PC appeared on mobile devices, it was either as old ports or games “based on” the originals, with mechanics that completely failed to meet the expectations of fans of the originals.
However, NetEase, the company behind Diablo Immortal, already has significant experience adapting major Western franchises for mobile platforms. They released EVE Echoes on smartphones, Warhammer 40,000: Lost Crusade, The Lord of the Rings: Rise to War , and other projects where it was important not just to use the name but also to capture the spirit of the original. Among their recent successes is the hit Marvel Rivals for PC and consoles, which our author Eduard Epstein rightly called a worthy competitor to Overwatch and a true gift for Marvel fans.
Destiny: Rising is also positioned as a game based on a major franchise. It so happened that before playing this game, I knew the Destiny universe only through hearsay—mostly as “Diablo with guns,” which is certainly an oversimplification, but quite telling for someone whose primary gaming platform is a smartphone. When I started writing my review of Rising, I was starting practically from scratch. And, frankly, I was excited: Diablo is the benchmark for ARPGs; first- and third-person shooters are among my favorite genres; NetEase has already proven it can make quality action games. Just think of Lost Light or Marvel Rivals.
The introduction began intriguingly. The developers clearly spared no expense on the presentation: elaborate introductory videos, detailed graphics, and a AAA-quality soundtrack. We’re introduced to a sci-fi universe where human civilization has been nearly destroyed by an invasion of ancient cosmic forces—hostile life forms seeking to erase the light of reason. The survivors gather around the Last City, and their hope for salvation lies with the warriors—the Guardians. They don’t die: when they perish, they return, resurrected by the Light itself. These are the protagonists, whom we join.
First, we are introduced to our first hero, Wolf, whose body is found on the now-empty battlefield by a flying support drone with a female voice, ZEV, who becomes our guide through the game’s world.
Together with her, we set off for the Last City, where we will meet key figures of surviving humanity and undertake the first quests that reveal the basic mechanics.
More on the gameplay later, but for now, a few words about the plot. The game isn’t translated into Russian, so knowledge of English (or another available localization language) is still required. Fortunately, the texts aren’t overloaded with complex vocabulary: even a basic level is enough to understand where the story is heading and what’s happening around you.
It’s immediately obvious that the developers invested heavily in the presentation. Scenes are voiced in real time, periodically interrupted by high-quality cinematic cutscenes—everything is executed with style, panache, and AAA-quality production values. However, the story itself remains lifeless.
Throughout the first few chapters, the narrative attempts to be heroic—inserting tragic notes (mostly through supporting characters) and occasional moments of humor at appropriate points. But it’s all so predictable and formulaic that you’ll want to yawn by the second chapter. If you’ve ever encountered similar universes—be it Mass Effect, Halo, or Destiny itself—you’ll anticipate every twist and turn minutes before it happens. There are no discoveries and no tension. Everything follows the same old pattern: correct, technical, but incredibly boring.
Heroes are introduced to us using a uniform template—not surprising, given the game’s gacha mechanics, where each character is an unpacking of a different archetype. We quickly understand who’s who. And if we don’t, players have long ago compiled tier lists, with the paid “gold” characters predictably at the top.
So watching him “with all his might” deal with a cunning and powerful boss in the story campaign isn’t particularly interesting. The truly cool characters are hidden behind promotional banners.
That’s not to say the story campaign is a complete failure. The locations are detailed, visually interesting, and the first few hours of play are truly captivating: there’s a sense of scale and dynamism. However, it soon becomes clear that the gameplay has become stagnant. The levels are structured like a narrow “corridor”—run from point A to point B, dealing with waves of mobs in mini-arenas in each section, occasionally overcoming platforming challenges or defeating a mini-boss to finally face a larger enemy.
There’s nothing wrong with corridor shooters—as long as they’re well-made. Linearity can be offset by tight combat, thoughtful AI, or interesting level design. Sometimes, Destiny: Rising makes some small attempts at this: verticality, platforming elements, and our hero masters the double jump. But more often than not, these opportunities are ignored, and the level devolves back into flat target shooting.
The enemy AI rarely shows any signs of intelligence—instead of using tactics, they rely on sheer numbers. You’re met with hordes of weak mobs that are more of a nuisance than a true challenge.
The combat system, as befits a mobile combat RPG, is built around the elements and rock-paper-scissors mechanics: one enemy type is vulnerable to electricity, another to fire, and a third to cold. Accordingly, it’s most effective to kill them with the appropriate weapon: an electric shotgun here, a fire assault rifle there. Elements of strategy? If only. You’ll have to grind assault rifles of all the elements.
Each hero has two weapons: a primary weapon with infinite ammo, and a secondary, more powerful one. Besides their weapons, heroes can use their elemental-based superpowers and an ultra attack after building up energy. The animations for the ult and super attacks are beautiful, but that’s not what shooters are all about.
The problem with Destiny Rising is that the shooting experience is nonexistent. There’s no sense of shooting, no feeling of wielding a powerful weapon. Normally, there should be at least some sense of recoil, the weapon’s power, the gunshot sound should have depth, the weapon should feel mechanical and have mass. In Rising, it’s not a weapon. There’s no such feeling here. Instead, it feels like plastic from an arcade.
For a shooter, this is a death sentence. Against this backdrop, it’s no longer so important that the visual hit indicators aren’t as clear as in other mobile games (and this is very important for mobile shooters), or that the sound is flat and uninteresting. There’s no real sense of shooting in a shooter. It’s truly sad.
So, we have a “nonexistent” plot and “nonexistent” core gameplay mechanics. What about the other elements?
Destiny: Rising features hub levels where we trade, receive and turn in quests, and go on raids. It’s all designed in the typical mobile MMO style. Unfortunately, it’s too typical. Newer games sometimes have much more modern designs. But Destiny: Rising looks like it came out several years ago.
There are no major complaints about the graphics; the game runs smoothly. But the main issues aren’t with the graphics themselves, but with the design. Both the guns and the characters are ugly. I had to resort to searching for the characters in Destiny 2. Are the characters there also that unattractive? No. They became “ugly” in Rising. The weapon designs, while similar in appearance to Destiny 2, are also better!
Naturally, the “golden” top-tier weapons are well-detailed. Since this is a looter shooter, loot raids become a crucial part of the game. Perhaps raids will save us? But here, typical mobile game mechanics kick in. Raids consume energy, which must be accumulated. Patience alone won’t do the trick.
The game’s technical condition is sound. There were no obvious bugs or crashes during play. There are some implementation quirks, such as the story campaign levels being downloaded from the internet (they don’t load immediately during installation) and the Wi-Fi connection requirement. But for some, this might even be a plus.
Finally, a few words about gacha. In a game with PvP elements, this almost inevitably translates into pay-to-win: pay to win. Yes, the developers generously hand out local currency in events, for completing quests, and for completing the main content. But players who aren’t willing to spend real money will sooner or later end up losing out. This isn’t just a matter of convenience—there’s a risk that you won’t have enough accumulated resources to acquire the hero you need from a temporary banner, especially if they require a lot of spins.
While gacha mechanics themselves are considered manipulative, capable of extracting more money from players than they intended, pay-to-win takes this to the next level. It’s one of the most controversial and negative trends in the modern gaming industry. Yes, you’re not formally forced to play PvP modes, and they have balancing modifiers designed to smooth out the differences between paying and non-paying players. But even these measures don’t eliminate the feeling of inequality.
Thus, even with all the efforts to disguise it, the gacha in Destiny: Rising, with its PvP component, remains a powerful tool for pressuring players. The monetization mechanisms work like clockwork, and their main goal is clear: to entice you to open your wallet.
Diagnosis
Destiny: Rising is a technically sound project. But behind the impressive, blockbuster-quality cutscenes lies a void. The plot is cliched, the characters are gacha-style templates, and the gunplay, which should be the heart of a shooter, is mechanical and soulless. Destiny: Rising is a money-making machine designed to extract money from franchise fans and new players who might be drawn to a looter shooter on mobile.
Any modern mobile battle royale, whether in the vein of PUBG, or an extraction shooter like Arena Breakout or the aforementioned Lost Light (from the same NetEase!), is much fairer to players and still provides the fun of loot and the adrenaline rush of PvP. They have emotion.
Destiny: Rising is a grinder, not a shooter. It’s a decent timekiller. It’s an MMO where you can form a clan and chat with friends every day, completing dailies and going on raids. I suppose that’s part of the fun. Fans of the series say in their reviews that Destiny: Rising is the best Destiny yet. Possibly.
But as a mobile shooter, Destiny: Rising is a failure, and not a shooter per se, but a casino in the form of a mobile RPG.
Pro
- Impressive serve at the start of the game
- Lots of content: story campaign, co-op missions, raids, additional modes
- Some of the game modes that don’t involve shooter mechanics are fun
Contra
- Lack of any sensation from shooting
- The plot is predictable, cliched and not engaging.
- Linear, monotonous gameplay
- Poor enemy AI
- Gacha mechanics with a pay-to-win twist
- Character and weapon design
