Destiny 2 Free Trial Begins Tomorrow, Has No End Date

Destiny 2 is getting a free trial starting November 28.

The free trial is open to all players on console and anyone with a Blizzard’s Battle.net account for the PC version.

According to the official page for the free trial, you can only access missions in the campaign that take place in the European Dead Zone and Titan. You also have access to the full Quickplay playlist for competitive multiplayer. You can also join a Clan and participate in fireteams to take on cooperative activities. All progress in the trial will carry over to the full game if players decide to purchase it.

A PR representative for the game told Heavy via email that players will be able to progress to level seven. You can also earn XP for your clan and explore the Farm social space.

The trial has no end date, according to the email.

Destiny 2 is currently on sale for as low as $39.99 for Cyber Monday. However the price appears to be only available today meaning you can’t try out the game tomorrow and get it at a reduced price.

Bungie came under fire after players discovered that Destiny 2 was rewarding players less and less XP as they repeated the same activities even though the game told them that they were earning the same amount of XP. All last week players were sharing anecdotal evidence that something was off with the way the game handled XP, according to Kotaku. Reddit user EnergiserX posted an in-depth analysis and concluded that the game has a hidden XP scaling factor that increases as you earn XP more quickly and that it can increase to the point where you’re earning only four percent of what you should be earning.

Bungie later confirmed that XP will scale up when playing longer or fixed duration activities like Crucible competitive multiplayer matches and Raids, and XP will scale down when playing quick, repetitive activities like Public Events. They have deactivated the system. Players will see XP earn rates change for all activities across the board but with all values displayed consistently in the user interface. They will be watching and reviewing XP game data over the week to “ensure that these changes meet our expectations, as well as yours.”

This reduction in XP grinding looks especially insidious considering that the game’s microtransactions are tied to this progression system. You see, after you get to level 20, each level up after that earns you a Bright Engram. Bright Engrams are essentially Destiny 2’s loot boxes, filled with cosmetic items like shaders and emotes as well as game-changing armor mods and faster Sparrows. You can work to gain experience in the game until you eventually level up and earn an engram, or you can buy the engrams with real world money. So by reducing the amount of XP gained and making it feel more of a slog, it makes purchasing the Bright Engrams instead of working towards them a more tantalizing prospect.

This isn’t the first tactic Activision-Blizzard used to manipulate people into buying microtransactions. Eurogamer reported earlier this month that Call of Duty: WWII lets you open your loot boxes in front of nearby people in the social space, driving others to buy loot boxes so they aren’t left out from getting cool stuff. You can even earn rewards from daily quests for watching people open loot boxes, according to the publication. Kotaku reported back in October about how Activision patented a method of using multiplayer matchmaking to encourage microtransactions, pairing players with others equipped with desirable gear. An Activision spokesperson told the publication that the design outlined in the patent hasn’t been implemented in any of their games.

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