Last week, I had the urge to go back to Destiny 2. Once a staple of my gaming diet, my legendary Warlock has sat, unbothered, in his little ship in orbit around the Tower for over two years, now. I didn’t even go back for the assumedly spectacular ending, and the final expansion to the ‘Light & Dark saga’, in the form of The Final Shape. I just didn’t care. Lightfall had put a pin in the game for me, nearly 10 years after my initial flirtation with my ‘forever game’ in Destiny 1’s mind-blowing alpha.
I hear the new update (The Edge of Fate) is looking pretty good, despite some questionable grind-heavy tactics that feel pilfered from Diablo 4 and the ARPG world. This is the first major expansion to the game since the devs wrapped up the story that’s been told over the last decade of Destiny, and demonstrates a new beginning in more ways than one. Sure, the reality of it all plays out the same; the call to adventure on a mysterious new planet, variations of well-known enemies hunt you down, and a baffling new NPC to listen to on your intercom.
To see this content please enable targeting cookies.
But there’s some new weirdness to it, especially when you’re rolling around as a ball like something from Metroid Prime (yes, really). It’s good. It’s a big change for Destiny, really. Layer in the environmental puzzles that actually have you change pieces of the environment, and weird mid-combat morphing strats, and it sounds like you’re onto a winner here, Bungie.
Thing is, Destiny 2 probably offers the worst experience for lapsed players I’ve ever experienced. Jumping back in, I have no real way to catch up on what’s happened since I last logged in, there’s loads of missing voice acting (without much in-game explanation), I get shoved right into a story mission I’ve got no context for, and a vast majority of the stuff I had access to last time I played has been ‘vaulted’ (or for the uninitiated: just plain removed from the game.)