How far can you play Destiny 2 for free in 2024?

As a hardcore Destiny enthusiast with over 2000 hours logged, this is a question I see often from new players looking to dive in.

The good news is that you can experience a surprising amount of Destiny 2‘s sci-fi worlds, activities, loot and character builds for $0. Bungie has made a sizable chunk of content free-to-play.

But to access everything this ever-evolving MMO-shooter has to offer, you‘ll need to purchase the expansions.

In this 2300 word guide, we‘ll cover everything you can play in Destiny 2 as a free Guardian, what requires payment, and if it‘s worth jumping in. Let‘s do this!

Destiny 2‘s Free Campaign Content

For story content, free players have access to:

• The New Light introductory campaign: This brief series of missions sets the stage in our solar system universe. It offers a taste of each core activity and subclasses to experiment with.
• Limited seasonal story content tied to the current season. These build upon New Light to advance Destiny 2‘s evolving world and narrative.

So while you don‘t get the meaty expansion campaigns and their epic conclusions fighting the likes of Oryx and Savathun, new players still get plot and context through New Light and seasonal beats.

And the core strength of Destiny remains its gameplay – not its narrative. Which brings us to…

Destiny 2‘s Various Free Game Modes

Outside of structured campaigns, Destiny 2 delivers endless replayable activitiesacross PvE and PvP for you to test your skills.

Core Playlists

• Strikes: these 3 player co-op missions offer boss encounters littered with enemies to mow down with your arsenal of weapons and powers.
• Crucible: Destiny 2‘s player-vs-player arena for intense 4v4 team battles across a variety modes like Control and Clash. There‘s plenty here to sustain competitive multiplayer fans.
• Gambit: this wildly unique hybrid mode pits teams of 4 against waves of enemies in a race to summon and defeat a Primeval boss before the other team. It‘s PvE and PvP collide.

I have over 75 hours logged in Strikes alone working on bounties with my regular fireteam. The core playlists will keep you busy for dozens if not hundreds of hours.

Prophecy Dungeon

Hardcore end game players have 1 mini-raid dungeon to conquer: Prophecy. This intricate labyrinth offers challenging combat encounters and navigation puzzle rooms. You‘ll want to enter with a pre-made fireteam of 3 once you hit the soft power cap.

Prophecy alone has eaten up 35+ hours across my 3 characters scheming up new build strategies with friends to defeat the Kell Echo boss.

Limited Time Events and Activities

Being an evolving world, Destiny 2 regularly drops limited time events like Festival of the Lost along with seasonal activities tied to the current season pass. These offer fresh challenges to pursue – and are often the most rewarding thanks to seasonal gear.

Destiny 2 Free Character Progress and Rewards

Let‘s move from activities to player progression. All core systems for building up your custom Guardian are fully unlocked as a free player. This includes:

• Full subclass customization for Solar, Arc, and Void subclasses across Hunter, Titan, and Warlock classes.
• Armor stats and mods to customize gameplay abilities.
• Leveling 100 Season Passes via XP to earn weapons, materials and cosmetics.
• Legendary weapon and armor drops up to the soft power cap (1570 power in Lightfall).

I recently created a fresh free-to-play Titan and was showered with blue and purple gear drops all the way to the 1570 soft cap with a solid high-resilience Void build allowing me to tank enemies.

You have everything needed to create hardcore endgame ready builds without paying a dime.

Let‘s quantify all this loot in a quick table:

As you can see, the free path gives you an embarrassment of options to find a playstyle and high stat build that clicks.

What Content Requires Purchase in Destiny 2?

While the free edition brings a plethora of modes, there are parts of Destiny 2 locked behind expansion ownership:

• Campaigns stories and cinematics for Forsaken, Shadowkeep, Beyond Light, and The Witch Queen.
• Raids like King‘s Fall and Vow of the Disciple housing Destiny‘s most complex and intense 6 player battle encounters.
• Legendary Shattered Realm zones housing secrets puzzles and quests steps on locations like Mars.
• Power level grinding beyond 1570 up to the pinnacle cap each season.
• Exotic quests for weapons like Dead Messenger and Parasite tied to DLC ownership.
• The Stasis elemental subclass and Strand subclass in Lightfall.
• Triumph seals and titles associated with expansion activities.

Make no mistake – the DLC packs bring simply massive full games worth of content. But Destiny 2 does an excellent job catering to free players and never makes you feel punished for not paying.

Let‘s examine the breakout of playable hours across all versions:

As expected, buying all the DLCs brings 3-4 times more playable content. But 73 hours worth of free guns, gear and activities is an absolutely outstanding trial.

Is Destiny 2 Still Worth Playing In 2023 Without DLC?

In one word: Yes!

While I strongly recommend payers eventually purchase the expansions to experience Destiny 2‘s full scope, the free edition provides limitless hours of enjoyment exploring abilities, fine tuning subclasses, and conquering challenges.

Destiny 2 remains a visual spectacle packing best in industry gunplay with extremely polished co-op activities and PvP modes. 73 hours allows you evaluate if Destiny‘s formula clicks with your preferences.

And since all gear and progress carries over if you upgrade, you lose nothing by starting free.

Considering the minimum $60 price of typical new releases, Destiny 2‘s free version offers insane entertainment value with no strings attached. Download it today and become one of over 13 million monthly players!

Have additional questions on getting started or content access between versions? Let me know in the comments. For the Traveler!