As the new "Destiny" expansion "Rise of Iron" is on its way, "The Taken King" comes to a close. I thought it was time to reflect on the beginning of the adventure so far.

Three years ago, the beta for the new, thrilling, action-packed game "Destiny" came out. I, like many others, downloaded the beta, unsure of what was in store. The first challenge of the game, and most games, was the character creator. I had the choice between three classes. Should I be a groundbreaking Titan, a swift killing Hunter, or an arcane space magic Warlock? After 15 minutes passed, I chose a Warlock and made him human.

The story starts with beautiful graphics showing three astronauts exploring Mars. They eventually find a large white orb. After a few minutes of cutscenes, it was go time for me. A small floating object was flying around scanning for something in a large area that looked like it hadn't been touched in years. The object had found what it was looking for — me. Although I was dead, the object had revived my body, called itself a Ghost, and lead me through an abandon factory. In there was an old Khvotsov auto rifle, which was very needed for the Fallen, the first enemy faction I encountered. As I battled through the Fallen forces, I made my way to an old ship and took off towards the only city left. Once there, you find out that the orb you had seen in the opening is called the Traveller, and its dying breath protected The Last City and created the Ghosts to search for their dead Guardians and bring them back to fight against the Darkness’ factions.

A few weeks after the beta dropped, it was time. I picked up my copy of "Destiny" and continued from where the beta ended. From battling the Fallen, to wakening the Hive; from attempting to destroy the origin of the Vex, to angering the Cabal. I fought to see the end. As the days went by, I explored the Moon, Venus, and Mars, battling the Darkness, and before I knew it, I was at the final mission: destroy the Vex’s origin at its heart. I did it, I completed the game, or so I thought.

I soon discovered the game had a raid that needed six people. I didn’t have many friends playing "Destiny" at the time, so I just played in crucible, and eventually, people came to me. Soon after, I ran my first my first raid called "The Vault of Glass" where “beneath Venus, evil stirs.” It was a challenge indeed, seeing as I knew nothing about the raid, and my newly-found friends and their friends explained the parts to me. Luckily for them, I was a quick learner and very adaptive to the situations ahead. Me not having a mic wasn’t a setback either. As we killed the Templar and its oracles, we made haste through the Gorgon Maze. The team filled with excitement as we arrived at the final two parts of the raid. The first part was simple, and we only had a few mess ups. The second part, not so much. Aethon, Time’s Conflux was the final boss. We spent hours fighting him and ran through loads of rocket ammo while experiencing terrible lags that made us go to orbit.

You year one readers know about this. Through sheer determination, and a hundred more “OK, we got this,” later, we pulled it off. I still remember it as if it were yesterday. As I grabbed the relic from Past Venus, we hurried up and destroyed the oracles. My team and I rushed out of the time portal and jumped to the center. Aethon had a sliver of health left, but any gamer knows that anything can happen last second. We weren’t going to let that happen. As I used the relic, the team blasted Atheon away with their Gjallarhorn rockets, Atheon fell, and so did the PS3 controllers of the team as we finally beat it.

For the next couple of months, I met new people and helped them with raids. People would introduce me as “Dazora, he’s one of the best players I’ve played with, and he doesn’t even have a mic.” Hearing that from people felt really prestigious. I thought I was just an “OK” that gets lucky once in awhile. I still think this today, but they saw it differently. Especially when the game’s first downloadable content dropped.

"Croat’s End" introduced a new character Eris Morne, who tells us that she escaped from the center of the Moon where she was trapped with the Hive. She warns us of Crota, Son of Oryx, and how he’s raising an army and wants to claim Earth for Oryx. As I stopped Crota’s minions and slayed his general, Omnigul, I was ready to take the raid on. Once again, I had my friends explain the raid to me, but I still couldn’t speak to them. I would usually message them through PlayStation Network or use the point and wave emotes to communicate. The Abyss was tough. I knew the objective, but the execution was easier said than done for a mainly Warlock user. Even though it was a challenge, I made it through after a few trials and errors. I found out that using my trusty exotic sniper, Icebreaker, helped out the team a lot due to the explosive damage from the kills; as a bonus, my self-resurrection bar filled up faster, in case of any screw ups. The Fireteam eventually found the light at the end of the tunnel that took us to Crota’s Ascendent Realm. Here, we had to form a bridge across which took us a long time, and we didn’t know the sword glitch, so we formed it the old fashion way. Numerous attempts later, the team finally got all the members across the bridge and defeated the two ogres that spawned in. The second to last hurdle was killing the Deathsinger Ir Yût and surviving the her liturgy, not to mention the waves of Knights and Acolytes that rush in. Surviving that was nothing compared to the fight with Crota.

It took us longer to kill Crota than it did for Atheon. It got to the point where the team quit and tried it again the next day. This was before the patch that showed us a warning that Crota was getting up. As the Swordbearer would try to run, Crota leapt and one shot him; his oversoul would activate, but we shot it down. The team needed a Swordbearer, but no one else knew how, and we didn’t want to wipe this late into the fight. I volunteered to do it because I could at least self resurrect and help shoot down the Oversoul. Crota was just a few swings away from death when I went up. My team downed Crota, and I went in to go kill him, but as I was about to deliver the final blow, he got up without warning and killed me. The Oversoul appeared and the sword was still active. I quickly messaged one of I members “Down Crota!” he didn’t question it and told the team that as well. With only a few seconds before the Oversoul killed the entire team, they quickly shot off the last of their Gjallarhorn rockets at Crota. He went down, and I self resurrected last second to deliver the final blow. The screams of Crota’s were silenced over the sound of choppy distortion from the team yelling, “Yeah! We finally did it! That last-second clutch!” Loads of laughter were shared among the Fireteam.

The visuals, lore and soundtrack are great, but those last-second efforts and teamwork are what make the game excellent. I hope to relive the fond memories with all my teams in the newest raid "Rise of Iron."