Damn, Phil Spencer plays a lot of Destiny 2
Rise and grind, Guardian
Xbox boss Phil Spencer has repeatedly joked that he plays "way too much" Destiny 2, but it wasn't until the latest Xbox "Destiny 2-sday" stream that I fully understood just how much.
Spencer hopped on stream to run some weekly activities with host TheMavShow and Destiny 2 streamer Ms5000Watts, and not unexpectedly, he's a Titan main. More unexpectedly, he's Power level 1337 (in the gear he was wearing on-stream, but that may not be his max Power) and season rank 194. Several full-time Destiny 2 streamers and content creators who literally play this game for a living are just now hitting season rank 200, so that's nothing to sneeze at.
"It's grown on me," Spencer said of the game. "I'll say that at first, even [Destiny 1], the beginning, I'm not sure if the grind really caught me. But anybody that's looked at my hours played now knows that it's way too much time. It's way too much. I do like the grind. My brain is simple: you give me 'that number goes up if I do this,' yeah, that works."
It's not that I ever actually doubted Spencer's enthusiasm toward Destiny 2, and I've got nothing but respect for a Rat King and Lion Rampant lover. More than anything, I'm just surprised that the head of Xbox has had the time to hit such a high season rank – the rewards cap out at rank 100 – with several weeks still left in the ongoing Season of the Splicer. Then again, I imagine it's much easier to squeeze in a few Strikes here and there when you can load up Destiny 2 on virtually any device thanks to Xbox Game Pass.
10 Ascendant Shards says Spencer will be in the chat at the upcoming Destiny 2 August 24 reveal stream.
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Austin freelanced for the likes of PC Gamer, Eurogamer, IGN, Sports Illustrated, and more while finishing his journalism degree, and he's been with GamesRadar+ since 2019. They've yet to realize that his position as a senior writer is just a cover up for his career-spanning Destiny column, and he's kept the ruse going with a focus on news and the occasional feature, all while playing as many roguelikes as possible.