When comparing Destiny 2 vs NieR: Automata, the Slant community recommends NieR: Automata for most people. In the question“What are the best open world games for PS4?” NieR: Automata is ranked 15th while Destiny 2 is ranked 24th. The most important reason people chose NieR: Automata is:
The combat in NieR: Automata is fantastic. It has a hack-and-slash feel to it, with an emphasis on agility and showy acrobatics. With the fluid and responsive controls, you can switch seamlessly from using swift attacks with your weapon to devastatingly strong attacks as you combo them together. You also use customizable ranged missile attacks from your personal robot pod, such as powerful laser beams or a giant hammer attack. It can be difficult to win battles sometimes, especially on the harder gameplay settings, but it's worthwhile to keep at it and watch yourself progress and improve.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Free to Play
As of 1st of October 2019, everything before Forsaken and Shadowkeep DLC went all totally free with its 'New Light' addition. You can still access the whole world except for certain quests, items, etc tied to the DLC missions.
Pro Really fun gameplay
Destiny 2 is all about killing aliens and destroying massive robots. To do this you have a wide variety of weapons and abilities available to you. This includes hand cannons, shotguns, assault rifles, chain lightning grenades, and many more. Each weapon and ability feels great to use, making destruction and mayhem that much more enjoyable. It's a well-rounded and enjoyable experience, which will keep you interested for dozens of hours.
Pro Solid controls that don't detract from gameplay
Your character's movement, aiming your gun, and even driving your hoverbike feels really fluid and responsive. As a result, you can make very precise movements, jumps, and shots in any situation, allowing you to land a headshot with your sniper rifle from far away while strafing with ease.
Pro Excellent co-op multiplayer
Even though Destiny 2 doesn't have strict class archetypes like most MMOs, each class/subclass has its role in a group setup. So whether you're capturing control points in a PVP match or fighting a tough boss in a raid, you still need to cover for each other's weaknesses. This can be providing support to surrounded teammates, taking the attention of groups of aliens or just picking off troublesome enemies from afar. Because of this you learn to rely on each other and working together feels rewarding.
Pro Massive environments that feel alive
The open-world environments in games usually have a lot of empty space, so you spend most of the time traveling without doing much else. Destiny 2 has large areas filled with enemies, world events, and activity in general, eliminating most of the downtime. Because of this it feels like you're actually visiting a planet inhabited/occupied by aliens, which considerably adds to the immersion.
Pro Improving your character is addicting
One of the main aspects online titles like Destiny 2 is character progression, which is done through leveling and collecting new equipment. Your character gets stronger and when you revisit missions/bosses that gave you trouble before, you can beat them with ease, which feels incredibly satisfying. This will push you to play just a bit more, collect a few more guns and armor pieces, defeat a couple more bosses, and before you know it, many hours will have passed.
Pro Fast-paced, action-packed combat
The combat in NieR: Automata is fantastic. It has a hack-and-slash feel to it, with an emphasis on agility and showy acrobatics. With the fluid and responsive controls, you can switch seamlessly from using swift attacks with your weapon to devastatingly strong attacks as you combo them together. You also use customizable ranged missile attacks from your personal robot pod, such as powerful laser beams or a giant hammer attack. It can be difficult to win battles sometimes, especially on the harder gameplay settings, but it's worthwhile to keep at it and watch yourself progress and improve.
Pro Unique storytelling with a real emotional impact
NieR: Automata's outlook on storytelling is incredibly special. To get the full experience, you have to run multiple playthroughs of the game, each of which offers a new experience and perspective. Your world view of the story events and characters expands drastically as you complete each playthrough, playing on your expectations to help you develop a deeper emotional bond with the protagonists and become invested in their plight.
Things take a real turn on your third playthrough, putting you on an emotional roller coaster all the way to the true ending. The plot twists and knocks on the fourth wall elevate the story to a truly unique place. Getting all the way to the very end can be a religious experience from how much heart and meaning you discover in the symbolism.
Pro It's got a hauntingly beautiful environment
NieR: Automata is set in a post-apocalyptic landscape after Earth has been overrun by hostile machines, and the artists really nailed what that would feel like. Abandoned and overgrown cities litter the landscape along with old refineries, graveyards, and eerie forests. When you add the beautiful soundtrack to the experience, it fills you with a bittersweet mix of loneliness and hope.
Pro Varied genre-spanning gameplay elements
NieR: Automata has different types of gameplay to keep things interesting. From the very start, you're on an on-rails bullet hell section, and then you switch over to the more traditional action RPG style of fast-paced combat. Things change up again not long after with some side-scrolling platforming from a 2D view. Later on in the story, there's a hacking mini-game where you navigate a tiny ship through a short puzzle, with the music changing to a charming retro sound to fit the theme and mood. This is a game that doesn't stay boxed in a single genre.
Pro An incredible amount of content
Outside of the main story, there's plenty of optional content to dive into. The side quests are the best way to get to know the characters and lore of the world, with some of them giving clever and subtle foreshadowing of the game's most critical events. There are also weapons to collect and upgrade, each of which offer nice little tidbits of lore after you get them to max level. And after reaching a certain point in the story, you get access to Chapter Select that lets you go back and replay whatever you want. You can easily spend 60+ hours exploring the world and still have much more to do.
Pro Gorgeous, ethereal soundtrack with amazing vocals
NieR: Automata's music is out of this world. It's so stunning and elegant in a way that nothing else can really live up to. The soundtrack manages to emotionalize the game through music, from the action-packed tracks with hard-hitting wind instruments and percussion, to the softer, somber songs that encapsulate the hauntingly beautiful environments and story moments you encounter. Vocals in the lore's indescribable language makes the music even more memorable, adding to the ethereal quality of the sound. This soundtrack is definitely one that you can go back to again and again without getting sick of it.
Cons
Con Content that was available at the start of the game ended up locked behind DLC
When the expansion Curse of Osiris was released, Bungie ended up preventing players without the expansion from being able to access the prestige versions of the first raid and nightfall strikes, as well as the PvP Iron Banner and Trials of the Nine. For the people who like to hunt achievements/trophies, this move effectively blocked them from earning them. Bungie has since patched things so players are not locked out of the prestige mode of the first raid, as well as nightfall strikes and Trials of the Nine when not using Curse of Osiris maps, making the achievements earnable again. Still, it was an extremely poor decision to lock player out of content they paid for and leaves the question as to will Bungie make another mistake with the next expansion.
Con Inconvenient customization
While most online games usually give you permanent color packs for customization, the shaders in Destiny 2 are divided into single colors that can only be used once. You can preview your new color scheme though. You shouldn't use shaders on leveling gear since you're gonna replace it anyway. As a result most players don't bother with creating unique appearances and everyone looks nearly identical sometimes. The sad part is that even though the shaders can drop randomly in the game world, they can also be bought from the in-game store. You can easily get a lot of shaders more in quests or public quests though, compared to the store. Some interesting shaders can only be purchased in the store, but it's kinda still reasonable.
Con Guns and armor do not feel unique like in the prequel
In Destiny 1, the guns and armor felt more unique when compared to Destiny 2. In Destiny 1, a gun or armor could drop that had one set of perks or stats boosts, and then it could drop again with a different set of perks and boosts. Weapons and armor from the raids also gave unique looks as well as perks that helped for that raid. In Destiny 2 those raid perks are gone, making the gear feel no different than what could get from anywhere else. The lack of variation in the guns and armor just make it hard to care about what you get and kills the urge to try to find the best gun and armor for your character.
Con Limited open world
Even though NieR: Automata is technically an open world game, it doesn't always feel like it. It's more that there's a big open space in the center of the ruined city you explore, with branches that lead off to vastly different environments, like a desert, a village, and a few other places. These locations aren't that spacious, either, and it's a bit of a stretch to even imagine all of these places being so close together in the first place. It's not too much of an issue as long as you find the story and combat engaging enough.
Con Second playthrough can get repetitive
Once you get to Route B, your second playthrough, you may find that too much is the same. There are some big differences, such as the new way you get to see things play out, but a lot of it rehashes Route A, your first playthrough. There's a ton of hacking you have to do as well, which gets pretty boring after repeating it over and over again. But if you stick with it, Route C and onward are absolutely worth the time spent getting to that point.
Con Some boring fetch quests
The pacing gets messed up when you're forced to run certain fetch quests near the start of the game. This is somewhat forgivable after the fun and action-packed introductory level, but the quests themselves are still a drag to play through. Some of the side quests can also boil down to the same thing. Even though these quests give a lot of useful information about the world, they're not all that fulfilling, and you may dread having to repeat them when playing through the game again.
Con Buggy on PC
Some players complain about the game crashing, freezing, their save files mysteriously disappearing, and more. As of June 2018, over a year after the game's initial release, there is still no patch to fix these problems. Not everyone on PC will have these bugs, but it's still quite prevalent. If you continually run into issues, your best bet is to find a mod or play the console versions instead of waiting on an official patch that may never happen.