Destiny 2 - Rockin' in the EDZ

Once you make through Destiny 2's campaign's opening, the first destination you'll visit will be the EDZ, European Dead Zone, on Earth. The EDZ is set in what appears to be the Black Forest are of Germany. It features a village decimated by war surrounded by dense woodlands. You'll enter the EDZ at the edge of the village and you'll likely find yourself in the middle of a firefight between Fallen and Cabal forces. The first landmark you'll see is a church and if you make your way up to the top of the bell tower you'll find Devrim Kay.

Kay is a human resistance commander and your primary NPC contact in the EDZ. He's a source of story narrative and mission assignment, but also the leader for the EDZ faction. Destiny 2 changes the way you'll earn faction rewards in that you'll no longer grind rep and then return to a hub to pick up rewards. As you complete activities in a zone you'll earn faction tokens. These tokens are then turned in to NPCs within that zone, Kay in the case of the EDZ, who will convert the tokens to faction rep and will give you rewards each time you reach a new level. These NPCs also have a taste for the resources that can be found in the area as these can be exchanged for faction rep as well.

One of the first things you'll notice while navigating your way around the EDZ is that your map is now actually quite useful. You'll see that the public events in the zone are not only marked, but that they have countdown times on them as well so that you'll know exactly when each one will start. The next thing you'll probably notice are that there are now fast-travel locations throughout the zone. The farther reaches of a zone are no longer long Sparrow rides away ' and the next time you're in space you'll find that you can land at any fast travel point directly from orbit. Look a bit closer and you'll find two different symbols on the map. One looks like a pair of arches over a dot and the other looks a bit like a dot wedged into the middle of an equals sign. The first symbol marks the entrance to a lost sector ' regions that don't appear on the map and that act almost as mini-strikes. The entrances to these sectors won't be entirely obvious, though, you'll need to poke around a bit and look for the same arches logo used on the map somewhere in the environment marking the entrance to the sector. Once you find it, you'll have to fight your way through several areas filled with enemies until you reach the sector's boss. Defeat the boss and you'll be rewarded with a chest full of loot. The other map symbol represents regional chests, which are exactly what they sound like. They're not the only chests you'll find in each region, but they tend to have higher quality loot than you'll get from other chests. Like the lost sector entrances, the marker serves as a guide and you'll need to poke around a bit to find each chest's actual location.

Public events are similar to those in Destiny, players in the vicinity of the event work together to accomplish an objective tied to the location. However, Destiny 2 adds secret additional objectives to its events. Discover and accomplish these objectives and you'll turn the event into a heroic level event, adding a new and more challenging end game to the event. Complete the heroic level requirements and you'll be rewarded for your extra efforts. Failing to accomplish the heroic objectives doesn't mean that you'll come away with nothing, though. You'll still earn rewards, they just won't be as good as they would have been if the objectives had been met.

Another new marker that you'll notice on the map will indicate the locations of adventures. Adventures are story missions that exist outside of the campaign missions. Playing through them will reveal more of the narrative of Destiny 2's universe, but skipping them will not block your progress through Destiny 2's primary campaign. The adventures feel like story missions in that they include full voice overs, story elements, and a series of objectives, but they tend to run a little shorter than the campaign's missions.

Lastly, in case you were wondering, yes, patrols make their return in Destiny 2's zones.

Take all of these elements together and you'll find that there's a lot more to do in Destiny 2's zones than in the original game's zones. The map makes it easy to jump around a zone to your destination, but there's so much to do along the way that you'll find that getting there is half the fun.