How Long Does It Take to Beat Destiny 2 Without DLC?

When focusing solely on mandatory story missions, most players can beat the vanilla Destiny 2 base campaign in 12-15 hours. According to player surveys on HowLongToBeat, the average playtime falls right in this range for first-time players. Speedrunners can complete it slightly faster at 8-10 hours, but they skip all optional content. For your average player new to Destiny 2, expect the core story to take around 12-15 hours.

Without any of the post-release downloadable content, Guardian characters will be capped at level 20 and Power Level 265. This provides more than enough Power to complete the campaign and vanilla strikes. However, higher level endgame activities like nightfalls, raids, and competitive PVP all require purchasing expansions to reach higher Power Levels.

Doubling Playtime With Optional Challenges

Once you wrap up the main story, there are still plenty of optional activities across the four vanilla destinations – Earth, Titan, Nessus, and Io. Adventures provide fun side quests that expand on lore. Lost Sectors hide combat arenas for you to clear out. Regional chests encourage exploration across the different planets and moons. Public events, patrol missions, treasure maps, and general open world activities can easily double your total playtime to 20-30 hours if you want to see everything vanilla Destiny 2 has to offer.

Curse of Osiris and Warmind Add Only 2-3 Hours Each

The two smaller DLC expansions, Curse of Osiris and Warmind, only add around 2-3 hours of campaign content each. These widen the scope of playable destinations and activities while also increasing the level cap and Power Level. However, as smaller DLCs, their limited new content doesn‘t drastically change the experience.

Forsaken Provides Where Most Story Content Lies

Many fans consider the Forsaken expansion as the highlight of Destiny 2‘s early content. Its epic revenge story provides another 8-10 hours of campaign missions in the new Dreaming City destination. Along with raising the level cap to 50, it offers the most engaging story content outside of the main vanilla game.

Forsaken provides over 4x more campaign content than Curse of Osiris/Warmind (Source: Polygon)

As seen in the chart above, Forsaken contains significantly more story content than the previous two DLCs. The later Shadowkeep and Beyond Light expansions supply around 5-8 hours of campaign each. But everything beyond Forsaken gives diminishing returns on sheer campaign length.

Endgame Activities Require Owning Expansions

Without any DLC, solo players can easily get dozens of hours out of Destiny 2 before hitting the level cap. However, max level players won‘t be able to access most endgame raids, dungeons, exotic weapon quests, and competitive PVP modes like Trials of Osiris. These require purchasing the expansions to unlock.

Here‘s a quick breakdown of major endgame content locked behind DLC:

• 4 raids (Last Wish, Garden of Salvation, Deep Stone Crypt, Vow of the Disciple)
• 1 dungeon (Pit of Heresy)
• 38 exotic weapon quests
• Prestige versions of raids
• Nightfall: The Ordeal
• Trials of Osiris
• Iron Banner

On the bright side, all players have access to the original Leviathan raid and raid lairs thanks to the New Light free-to-play experience. But the vast majority of pinnacle endgame PvE and PvP content requires purchasing expansions.

Expect 12-15 Hours for Campaign, But Content Drastically Increases with DLC

In summary, Destiny 2‘s main story missions will likely take you 12-15 hours your first time through. The optional content can double that if you want to experience everything the base game offers. But while new Light players can enjoy themselves for a couple dozen hours, the meat of Destiny 2 lies in its endgame activities locked behind DLC.

To access desired exotic weapons and armor, milestone challenges, new subclasses, most raids, dungeons, and competitive PVP, you will have to purchase the expansions. Overall, Destiny 2 provides relatively limited content for free players. If you want to experience Destiny 2 the way most veteran players do, you will need to spend money on the DLC. But you can sink 10-20 hours into the main story before deciding if you want to commit to that additional purchase.