Destiny 2’s new exotic mission, Dual Destiny, has been weirdly controversial despite being, as PCG UK editor-in-chief Phil Savage says, the best exotic mission Bungie has made in years. Dual Destiny requires two players to work in tandem, communicating to solve puzzles like they’re in a diet mini raid. The consensus, though, seems to be that Dual Destiny is worth the LFG hassle if you don’t have any buddies to queue with.
But what if you specialize in soloing difficult Destiny missions, like high level player and guidemaker Esoterickk? Esoterickk specializes in taking on Nightfalls, dungeons, exotic missions, and even parts of raids—stuff that typically demands three to six players—all by himself. Dual Destiny’s puzzle focus, as well as the fact that you can’t even load in without a partner, seemed to preclude his usual modus operandi.
But then Esoterickk got a little silly with it, running Dual Destiny, in his words, “as close to ‘solo’ as possible.”
“I ran a second account through The Final Shape campaign, ran the post-campaign missions, unlocked the Dual Destiny mission, and controlled them both at the same time during the entire mission,” Esoterickk wrote in the description of his “solo” Dual Destiny run on YouTube. “My main character was on mouse and keyboard, and the second character I used a controller on a second screen. And with that, I did the entire mission ‘solo’… playing two accounts at once.”
The video has a delightfully cheeky picture-in-picture view of the second character’s screen, with Esoterickk swapping between the two to complete Dual Destiny’s puzzle sections, stashing one in a safe spot while using the other to complete the mission’s combat sections.
Esoterickk says that “the run itself isn’t too difficult at all”—maybe take that with a grain of salt coming from someone who solos dungeons on the regular—”but the time investment (and logistics of it all) took a bit.” That’s putting it mildly: This required a second computer or console, a second screen, alternating between two different input methods, and needing to buy, complete, and gear up after The Final Shape on a second account. This is a megaton level of commitment to the bit, and all I can really say is: mad respect.
You probably shouldn’t play Dual Destiny like this, though: It won’t kill you to open up the LFG tool and talk to a stranger for thirty minutes or so, and think of the money you’ll save by not buying a second copy of The Final Shape.