History YMMV / Destiny2

** Stasis in the Crucible has become a main point of contention in the fandom. The Hardcore PvP fandom actively wish for Bungie to remove the subclass entirely, or make a gun-only crucible mode with no abilities. On the flip side, others seem to enjoy the challenge Stasis brings as it means players are now required to think outside the box and learn effective counters to it.

** Swords tend to be surprisingly popular in the Power slot due to the fact that even a single light swing will be a OneHitKill, you get plenty of ammo per box spawn, and the fact that you get a third-person camera when using it and thus gain a massive situational awareness advantage over first-person players with guns. This means that players can corner-camp with impunity and become a massive annoyance to their opponents if they can't be flushed out effectively via grenades or flanking. The biggest offender is the Hunter exclusive Quickfang, which boosts movement speed and has the fastest swing time of any swords, all while still able to OneHitKill enemy Guardians. Year 2 moved away from this trend in Heavy weapons due to shotguns being moved to the Special slot and therefore a much more accessible close-range OKHO weapon than swords. ''Season of the Lost'' applied some additional nerfs, like no longer allowing you to draw your Sword in certain PvP modes if you have no ammo for it -- preventing players from using the third-person view to peek around corners.

*** Another weapon that has perks that go against its nature is Naeem's Lance, a Strand element Rapid-Fire Frame Sniper Rifle from Warlord's Ruin. About the only worthwhile perks on it are ''Reconstruction'' and ''Precision Instrument''. The rest are either useless in most cases (''Deconstruct'', ''Demolitionist'') or try to make it a utility weapon when Snipers just aren't meant for it (''Slice'', ''Hatchling'', ''Attrition Orbs''). Not to mention its Origin Trait, ''Sundering'', barely gets any time to shine, due to being only active against vehicles and constructs, and the only surefire way to encounter them is in Crucible... where its options for PVP are still lackluster.

** Year three made the seasonal content isolated to that season, forcing a heavier LevelGrinding of one activity than players wanted because it would be gone shortly. The Vex Offensive of Season of Undying was building towards a grand assault against a major Vex enemy (the Undying Mind, which lives up to its name and had several iterations in the first game) but proved to be less of a challenge than hyped. This culminated in Season of the Worthy and, again, a public event in Seraph Towers that was hampered by a reduced playerbase preventing you from completing it. A lot of content was also restricted to the reintroduced Trials of Osiris, an elite pvp gametype only a select group of players could achieve anyway, which exaggerated all the issues with the format. Year four addressed this by maintaining the seasonal activities and gear drops for the remainder of the year, so [[OneHundredPercentCompletion completionists could finish off certain triumphs]] without the pressure of the three-month turnaround.

** ''Forsaken'' completely revamps the game's mechanics to fall more in line with ''The Taken King'' DLC from the first game. Randomized stats are back, Exotics are rarer and have more unique effects, shotguns and sniper rifles can be used as secondary weapons again, cooldowns for ultimates are shortened, PVP is back to 6 vs 6 with the new Gambit mode added, there's more incentives to perform daily quests and explore the open world areas, and so much more. Many fans have declared that ''Forsaken'' should be considered the point where Destiny 2 finally became a true sequel to Destiny 1. This sentiment increased even more after the three Seasons (''The Black Armory'', ''Joker's Wild'', ''Penumbra'') and the announcement of ''Shadowkeep'' and the jump to FreeToPlay, all of which led to the game's player count soaring to new heights, as well as praise from gamers and professional critics alike.

** Year Six ended up being viewed as one of the weakest overall years for the seasonal story model, primarily due to the lackluster reception of ''Lightfall'' and the year spent entirely around one DrivingQuestion regarding the GainiaxEnding: [[spoiler: How to follow the Witness through the portal in the Traveler]]. Season of Defiance had almost no progress since it was designed as [[SimultaneousArcs happening concurrently]] with the ''Lightfall'' story, but "Season of the Deep," "Season of the Witch" and "Season of the Wish" was only small incremental progress and not a whole lot of actual story between them as [[spoiler: discovering Savathun knows how to follow the Witness, Savathun had prepared an Ahamkara wish and bartering with Riven to fulfill that wish]]. In many ways it was frustrating for players because [[WorldBuilding the deeper lore reveals were pretty great]] and individually the playlist activities were more consistently well-received compared to past years, just that [[PlayTheGameSkipTheStory the story threads were much more sparse]].

* AccidentalAesop: It's probably unintended, but the Vanguard's collective reaction to the Lucent Brood in ''The Witch Queen'' is essentially: "They don't deserve the Light, they all must die, including the Ghosts allied with them." Compared to the regular themes of hope, unity, and heroism, it's a humongous contrast, and it carries the unfortunate implication that the current breed of humanity's Guardians are akin to the Imperium of Man in ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40K'': aliens do not deserve godly powers like humans do, and they deserve to be snuffed out while humanity continues.

** Celestial Nighthawk is an exotic Hunter helmet that condenses all Golden Gun shots into one, but with a 6x damage output. Since Crucible or Strikes rarely need that much damage it became a go-to for Raids and Dungeons, while using other buffs provided by allies they can sometimes deal 15 percent of the damage to the boss health in one shot, and straight up oneshot some Dungeon bosses. If a Hunter isn't using Celestial Nighthawk they had better be using Orpheus Rigs and Shadowshot.

* MagnificentBastard:
** [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast The Spider]] is the cleaver and charismatic head of the Fallen crime syndicate that rules the otherwise lawless Tangled Shore. Coming to contact with the Guardian and Petra Venji, The Spider would exploit their desire to avenge Cayde-6 death to rid himself of the Scorn infesting the Tangled Shore. The Spider would place bounties on criminals for the Guardian to kill and allow him to regain control of the Tangle Shore and in return he would give them the locations of the Scorn Barons and their leader Uldren Sov, all of whom played a part in Cayde-6's murder. When The Spider learns that his brother Siviks stole all the weaponry from the Black Armory, he has the Guardian kill him to establish business relations with the Black Armory, making The Spider the Guardian's most unscrupulous ally.
** The Witch Queen, [[AboveGoodAndEvil Savathûn]]'s machinations bear their fruits in this game, with sweeping changes to the status quo. Her mistrust of [[GreaterScopeVillain The Witness]]'s endgame leads her to backstab Nezarec and hide away the Veil prior to the story, stalling the Witness long enough for humanity to recover from the Collapse. In Forsaken, she has Riven curse the Dreaming City into a timeloop so that her forces may reach the Distributary and repeatedly massacre the Awoken there, potentially setting her free from her Worm-feeding [[EvilOnlyHasToWinOnce if she succeeds even once]]. When her interference with the Guardians' communion with the Pyramids exposes her treachery to The Witness, she finds refuge by possessing Osiris throughout Year 4, mentoring Crow while testing the Vanguard's budding alliances with the Cabal and the Fallen. Upon revealing herself, Savathûn strikes a deal with Mara Sov to exorcise her Worm in exchange of releasing the real Osiris, keeping true to her word once the ritual is over. In Year 5, Savathûn returns with powers over the Light, unsealing Mars and beating back First Disciple Rhulk. With TheReveal that the Traveler gave the Light to the Hive and resurrected Savathûn [[ResurrectionGambit despite the latter knowing it wasn't guaranteed]], [[MemoryGambit Savathûn regains the memories she lost upon revival]] and intends to seal the Traveler away from The Witness. Despite the Guardians foiling her, she's content that they are ready to stand against The Witness.

** Following the disatorous State of the Game post weeks before The Final Shape Showcase, Joe Blackburn [[https://www.bungie.net/7/en/News/article/joe_summary released a sixteen minute video]] in which he talked about the formation of a [=PvP=] Strike Team, A Cruicible Map Pack in 2024, a set of Eververse Armor being made earnable in activites in Season 22, a renewed focus on communication from the Community Managers, and Joe himself streaming Destiny 2 in order to talk more directly to the community.
** After years of having Supers and abilities themed almost entirely around punching enemies, Titan players were ''ecstatic'' when the new Super for ''The Final Shape'', ''Teilight Arsenal'', and the accompanying aspect were both support themed, feeling that not only was it a nice change of pace, but also felt more evocative of older Titan lore entries.

** ''Season of Arrivals'' is widely seen as the high-point. The Seasonal Content was regarded as one of the more enjoyable events, being more or less a [=PvE=] version of Gambit. The story was also some of the best seen in the game at that point as well, with planets being evacuated in response to the Darkness' growing presence on several planets and leading to the disappearances of four.

** ''The Witch Queen'' came in with a bang compared to ''Beyond Light'', having not only a decently lengthy campaign (including a Legendary difficulty that doesn't rely on cramming Champions into it), but also a far more engaging story and an antagonist that we got to spend time with in the previous season, giving us significantly more incentive to engage in the story, compared to Eramis who only got slight foreshadowing. ''Witch Queen'' also came in with Void 3.0, starting the process of reworking the Light subclasses to bring them in line with the Aspects and Fragments system that Stasis introduced. On top of this, the new raid, Vow of the Disciple, is regarded as another contender for BestLevelEver, especially where the final boss is concerned. While it does have some flaws of its own, it was seen as a humongous step up from the last expansion.

** ''Season of the Deep'' introduces an Eververse jumpship simply called the [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Prototype Submersible]], with the description "Someone's tested this thing under pressure... right?" While a harmless joke about the wide variety of ways Guardians can die to liquid pressure in the season at its conception, the week in which it was made available for Bright Dust wound up coming off of the heels of the ''Titan'''s [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_submersible_implosion implosion]], which has also been similarly described as a FlawedPrototype.

** The Destiny Content Vault and sunsetting are both heavily loathed by fans. While the former has some justification due to the need to update the old content to run on newer engines, fans were widely unhappy with the removal of all campaign content up to ''Forsaken'', particularly since this meant if you wanted to play any of the game's story content, you had to buy an expansion pack. Attempts to address this issue have been mixed at best, with the Timeline Recollections added in ''Season of the Witch'', clearly intended to fix the issue, instead enraging fans because of how it was handled. In particular, many felt the version of Last Call in the recollection was too short and truncated too much of the campaign.

** The Exo Stranger's vision of the DarkFuture where Ikora is the last member of the Vanguard left alive became eerily prophetic when Zavala's voice actor, Creator/LanceReddick, passed away in March 2023.

** During the launch months, many players were fed up with the general overuse of the MIDA Multi-Tool, Uriel's Gift and Last Hope in the Crucible due to most other weapons not being viable enough and the latter two being purely subject to RandomlyDrops instead of being guaranteed quest rewards. It doesn't help that weapons have to be balanced for both PvE and PvP use.

** ''Lightfall'', meanwhile, the opposite effect happen for Strand. While it was met with a far warmer reception for being much more balanced to fight against, and providing fantastic mobility options with the Grapple, it all got lost in the noise of every other issue plaguing the expansion. ''Lightfall'' was derided as one of the worst expansions in the history of the franchise, with a plot seen by many as filler (alongside a borderline GainaxEnding), a raid regarded as way too easy (to the point that ''it can be soloed feasibly''), FakeDifficulty in many areas, and the increasing usage of reused weapon designs finally reaching a new low with the Neomuna and Root of Nightmares arsenals, enraging fans who have gotten tired of using yet another variation of a previous model for a supposedly new gun. Not to mention that the main story treated the Veil, a powerful artifact, as just a {{Macguffin}}, only ever getting explained in ''Season of the Deep''... a season that will be inevitably vaulted when the year has finished, commonly met with the complaint of "Why wasn't this in the campaign?" All in all, ''Lightfall'' is seen as a very unimpressive expansion, comparing unfavorably to the much more warmly received ''The Witch Queen''.

* OvershadowedByControversy: Initially, the game's content drought, lack of endgame content, heavy focus on microtransactions, incidents such as [[https://www.usgamer.net/articles/destiny-2-bigger-issues-xp-throttling secretly throttling earned XP]], and what was seen as a lack of communication between Bungie and the players had Destiny 2 take a critical drubbing from both players and reviewers. This greatly affected ''Forsaken'''s sales despite its praise and a marked increase in returning players. Fortunately, by ''Shadowkeep''[='=]s release, the game sparked a massive NewbieBoom thanks to cross-save, the migration to Steam and the shift to a free-to-play model.

** In the lead up to ''The Final Shape'', Bungie enraged the fan base by announcing that, despite claims to the contrary, they would have to lay off several employees, which ended up delaying the expansion by several months. Worse still, one of those laid off was Michael Salvatore, whose soundtracks are the one part of every expansion thus far that is universally praised. Combined with multiple other issues (among them a drop in Crucible quality due to shuffling some of its team to work on the upcoming ''Marathon'' game), many fans that were previously losing interest in the game have finally decided to jump ship, while others have compared the upcoming expansion to the maligned ending of ''Series/GameOfThrones''.

* TaintedByThePreview: Titan mains were unhappy with the reveal of the Strand Subclass for Titans, the Berserker. The chief complaint was that it was yet another Titan subclass with a strong focus on melee and a roaming super that emphasized close-range combat, [[ItsTheSameSoItSucks like almost every single other Titan Subclass.]] Bungie's tone-deaf response in which they basically told Titan mains that "Titans are the punch stuff class" didn't exactly help matters, making it come across that they don't even know what their own class is capable of.

** Upon introduction Nimbus became viewed as one of the most unlikeable characters in the Destiny saga, after so much effort trying to build up the epic legacy of the Cloudstriders they came across as a TalkativeLoon with no functional contribution to the story beyond superficial action sequences. [[spoiler: After Rohans' HeroicSacrifice]] they remained blissfully jovial despite the weight it should have and they continue as the location vendor and MissionControl, constantly in your ear. ''Lightfall'' already being one of the worst reviewed expansions of the game didn't help any. Though the mission for Deterministic Chaos does manage to bring some seriousness to the character.

* TheUntwist: Due to a ContentLeak of ''Season of the Lost'''s storyline, unscrupulous readers began working backwards from its narrative into its {{Foreshadowing}} from prior seasons and using them to spread its main twist as a conclusion that they just so happened to make. As a result, TheReveal that Savathun had possessed Osiris for all of Year 4 was greatly dulled in its impact.