In the past months we have had the opportunity to cover Destiny 2 far and wide, the sequel greatly awaited by fans of the series but also by all those curious who, perhaps, have only tried the title in a few beta but have always been fascinated by the great chatter surrounding this project. We obviously reviewed it with a long article full of impressions and considerations, we then deepened every aspect of the first raid, the Leviathan, and of course we did not miss some consideration on the PvP of the game, the Crucible. Now that a month and a half has passed since the release of the title on consoles, we are finally ready to issue our judgment on the PC conversion: much more than just a linear port, this edition is an incredible manifestation of Vicarious Visions' attention and love towards computer gamers. Obviously in this article we will not review the gameplay, the plot or the aspects more related to the contents, but we will focus on the technical elements of the graphic sector and on the integration with Battle.net, the Blizzard platform where the game is distributed exclusively. . Yes, you read that correctly: Destiny 2 for PC cannot be purchased and downloaded from Steam and perhaps this represents the first step towards the complete move of Activision titles from Valve's digital delivery platform to that developed by the house of World of Warcraft and Overwatch. The contents of this edition are the same as the console counterpart, including the raid, and starting with the next DLC, The Curse of Osiris, scheduled for later this year, the synchronization will be complete.
The graphic settings
We obviously start from the most representative element of Destiny 2 for PC: the incredible availability of graphic settings that can make the game extremely configurable. As you can see from the video we have inserted a little further down, this conversion allows a very high level of customization ranging from various settings for what concerns the ambient occlusion, the quality of textures and shadows and even the separate level of detail for what concerns the environments, characters, foliage and shadows of the vegetation. What does this last element mean? That Destiny 2 on a personal computer allows you to set with the utmost precision at which distance from the player the high resolution textures or the geometries of the elements with the utmost detail are loaded, separating the variables unlike what happens for many titles where the level of detail is a single setting. There is also a series of settings related to post-processing effects able to give that cinematic feeling to the title, such as those that regulate the light beams, chromatic aberration, film grain, blur in motion and effects. visuals of the wind. However, there are four settings that are most noteworthy.
Let's start with anti-aliasing, probably the only variable below expectations. The final version of the game only implements FXAA and SMAA: the MSAA that was present in the beta was completely lost along the way but generated an embarrassing amount of compatibility problems. We hope that Vicarious Visions' decision was to temporarily remove this effect with the aim of re-implementing it once adequate stability is achieved. Then there is the HDR inserted perfectly from the first final release, provided of course you have an adequate monitor. And finally, there are a couple of specific settings for this PC version that well represent that love for the computer public we were talking about at the beginning of the article. First of all there is the field of view, the FoV, which can be set from a minimum value of 55 to a maximum of 105 with the default set to 85, ten points more than the standard console set to 75. This is the width of the player's field of vision. Conceptually it is as if you were going to set the depth of the focal lens: the more you increase the value, the greater the wide-angle effect so as to be able to observe more elements of the scenario surrounding the observation point, obviously losing detail and zoom on what is in front. to the weapon. Reducing the value loses the lateral portions of the gaze but gains in frontal detail. In practice, the player can thus choose whether to favor the central depth of field so as to be able to see the opponents in the distance, or whether to bring much larger sections of the surrounding environment back into the monitor.
The other proprietary setting is supersampling, here called Rendering Resolution. Destiny 2 on PC allows you to set the rendering quality from a minimum of 25% to a maximum of 200% of the resolution. What does all this mean? That if, for example, we set 1080p as the resolution, we can force the game to render all the elements as if in reality our monitor was set from a minimum of 480x270 to a maximum of 3840x2160, the 4k. The engine renders this rendering and then scales it to the actual resolution we set. In practice, this allows us, for example, to have the graphic quality of 4k even if the monitor is not able to support this resolution or, on the contrary, to maintain 1080p even if the components of our computer could not allow us an adequate fluidity. reducing the number of rendered pixels. Obviously this is a setting to be managed with caution, under penalty of a huge drop in the frame rate, but we really appreciated the possibility offered by the game. Too bad only for the pre-rendered cutscenes that always and only run at 30 frames per second, probably due to some pre-set value by Bungie during programming or depending on the actual realization of the motion capture. Considering that Destiny 2 on PC amazes first and foremost for the unlocked frame rate that allows it to practically always reach 60 FPS, every time an intermission sequence of the campaign starts, the downgrade is strongly noticeable.
Connection problems
As is well known, Destiny has always been plagued by various compatibility problems with Spanish connections, especially for what concerns the optical fiber. Destiny 2 is no exception. Especially in the presence of TIM Fibra and Fastweb Fibra, using routers on loan for use, it seems practically impossible to complete the first mission of the campaign or enter PvP due to the various Cabbage and Weasel errors and constant disconnections. There are two possible solutions that the author of this article has experimented with on his own skin.
The first option requires access to the standard router installed by the telephone company to manually disable the firewall and DDoS protection that can be found in the sparse settings menus. In doing so, if it is also true that the few protections granted by these hardware are lost, it is possible to continue in the missions and to experience "only" constant disconnections every 20-30 minutes of play.
The second option requires the purchase of any separate ADSL / Wi-Fi router to be connected to the one offered on loan for use using an RJ-45 network cable. The connection must be made through the WAN port of the purchased device. At this point you will have to enter the TIM or Fastweb router panel and manually disable the internet connection but not the fiber connection. So in your trusted router you will have to set up the internet connection with PPPoE protocol, enter alicewag | alicewag in the case of TIM and fastweb | no password if you have a Fastweb connection and tell the router to automatically connect to each access request. By doing so you will have, in fact, bypassed the router on loan for use which will only serve to manage the physical connection of the fiber while the firewall and NAT will be managed by the device you have purchased, giving you much more configurability and, basically, perfect access to your favorite games.
There is actually a third option that seems to be very fashionable: using your smartphone to set up a Wi-Fi hotspot over the 3G or LTE network. It is not a solution that we would like to recommend, first of all for the consumption of data traffic and secondly for the ping which, very often, undergoes enormous peaks when the bandwidth is particularly saturated.
Home is where Battle.net is located
The other defining element of this conversion is its intimate and exclusive connection with Battle.net, Blizzard's digital platform. Destiny 2 represents the first video game not from the Irvine house to land on this system and obviously it brings all those characteristic elements that probably convinced Bungie and Activision to choose this destination. First of all, the game finally implements a World of Warcraft-style text chat that can be activated simply by pressing the Enter key. However, it is limited since it does not allow you to talk to those around us but only and exclusively with members of the team and the clan. There are also whispers to specifically contact any other Battle.net user as friend management is unified. Through a convenient in-game menu that goes alongside that of the map and destinations, we can see in a moment which players are online, what title they are playing, invite them to fly or examine their equipment and access the functions related to the clans . Everything is very fast and perfectly integrated exactly as if it were an Overwatch or any Heartstone, including notifications which, while maintaining the graphic style of Destiny 2, offer all the typical information of Battle.net.
Let's spend the last two words on the controls issue and more generally on the configurability of the gameplay of this conversion. Obviously not playing this sequel with a mouse and keyboard, given its nature as a pure and precise first person shooter, is a sacrilege and also from this point of view the guys of Vicarious Visions have not missed a shot. As you can see in the PC settings video inserted just above, everything is completely configurable starting from the position of the reticle which can be the same as the console version or specific of this conversion, its color and of course there is no lack of full customization of the keys including the possibility of aiming, running and crouching by holding down a key or in switch mode. Among other things, it is possible to change the commands from mouse and keyboard to joypad on the fly: the configurations are separate and independent so as to really meet all players.
Also noteworthy is the work done by the developer on the recoil of the weapons. If you use the classic PC controls the effect will in fact be in line with what we are used to with all the other shooters on this platform, Call of Duty first and foremost: we will not have to deal with the amplified effect that it is possible to experiment with. the pad and which forces the continuous positioning of the right analogue but, precisely to avoid excessive movements with the mouse, it will be essential to work up in a very realistic and familiar way without any type of aim assist ready to dampen the effect.
Comment
Digital Delivery Official site Price 59,99 € Resources4Gaming.com8.5
Readers (71)7.4
Your voteLet's repeat what we happened to say already on the occasion of the reveal of the game in Los Angeles before the summer: Destiny 2 on PC is simply another game. The quality of the graphics and the unlocked frame rate return a different feeling not only from a visual point of view but precisely in terms of controls and gameplay quality. Add to all this the incredible work done by the guys at Vicarious Visions with the conversion as regards the graphic settings and the customization of the controls, and it is easy to understand why we decided to raise the vote by two decimal points. If you want to play the Bungie sequel and have a good computer in your hands, there is no reason why you should buy the console version instead of the PC version.
PRO
- Lots of graphics settings
- Controls can be configured independently for mouse and keyboard or joypad
- The unlocked frame rate is a joy to behold
- We hope that the synchronization of the content with the console version is effective
- From a content point of view, the cons of the console review remain valid
