Is Destiny Rising pay-to-win?

Destiny: Rising is a gacha game where you pull for limited-time five-star characters and then build them out to use in activities. Gacha games are known for having predatory monetization techniques because you can buy character pulls for real money, giving a clear advantage to players who swipe their cards.

If you’re worried that Destiny: Rising locks the most powerful characters behind a paywall, here’s everything you need to know about its monetization systems and what you can get by being free-to-play.

Everything you can get for free in Destiny Rising

Destiny: Rising is a much more forgiving gacha than most on the market, like Genshin Impact, Honkai: Star Rail, and even Wuthering Waves. If you played any of those games, you’re familiar with the feeling of losing a 50/50 on a character you really wanted, but there’s no such thing in Destiny: Rising.

Here are the good sides of Destiny: Rising‘s gacha system:

• No 50/50 on event banners
• Characters guaranteed in 60 pulls
• Lots of free pulls
• Wolf is a strong starting character

In Destiny: Rising, characters on limited-time banners are guaranteed in 60 pulls. There’s no 50/50 involved, making it a game of not whether you can get the character, but rather how early they will drop. Banners last around 30 days, giving you plenty of time to farm Lumina Leaves.

The game also offers over 200 free pulls through base gameplay. This includes “Bon Voyage” Charms for the standard banner and Lumina Leaves. This should be more than enough to get an event character and a few standard five-stars.

If you decide to save most of your pulls for a character you really like, Wolf is a strong option to run in the meantime. Most of the time, the main characters in gacha games are mediocre when it comes to performance, and while we’re yet to reach the true endgame of Destiny: Rising, so far, you can comfortably clear everything using Wolf as long as you match weapon elements for the activity.

The biggest question is how many free pulls we will get with each update? Most gacha games maintain player interest with a variety of limited-time events for players to earn pulls, and since Destiny: Rising is still in its early days, we don’t know what that will look like later down the line.

Everything you can buy in Destiny Rising

Despite the free stuff, Destiny: Rising is still a gacha game, which means there are still ways to spend a ton of money. The main thing to buy in the game is more pulls, but you can also get some additional rewards and materials, depending on what you get.

Here’s everything you can buy in Destiny: Rising for real money:

• Lumina Leaves: Currency to buy pulls.
• Cosmetics: Character skins, Sparrows, Ghost shells, and more.
• Battle pass: Premium track includes “Bon Voyage” Charms L.E., upgrade materials, cosmetics, and earlier access to the seasonal Exotic weapon.
• Peacemaker’s Gifts: 7-day subscription with cosmetic rewards for Attal and “Bon Voyage” Charms
• Founder Bundle: Bundle that includes the battle pass, Tree of Light’s Blessing, 10 “Bon Voyage” Charms L.E., 240 Pinnacle Energy Reserves, and a few more rewards.
• Tree of Light’s Blessing: 30-day subscription, granting Lumina Leaves and Black Market Coins every day you log in.
• Hero’s Vault: Additional rewards for reaching Team Level milestones.
• Journey Bundles: Discounted bundles with Lumina Leaves and “Bon Voyage” Charms.

Most of these purchases net you Lumina Leaves or character pulls, making it easier to get a limited-time character and even their Talents. Talents (aka Constellations from Genshin Impact) are buffs you can only unlock when you get a duplicate character.

This means that to get the strongest version of a five-star character like Gwynn, you need to get her seven times, which can cost up to 420 pulls. Some of these Talents are powerful, but don’t feel like you need them to perform well in any activity.

As mentioned, in the current state of the game, you can clear everything using Wolf. Whether that changes in the future remains to be seen, but in most gachas, you can play core activities without spending money. The only exception would be PvP, but most modes like Shifting Gates and Iron Bar have Fair Play enabled to minimize abilities’ strength.