I remember watching the Star Wars – The Phantom Menace trailer at the end of my college career. I thought to myself, “It’s back! We’re going to see more Star Wars! And it’s going to be the best ever because it’s about Anakin’s journey to the dark side!” Then it wasn’t the best ever. Then the Star Wars – Attack of the Clones trailer came out and I thought that it was going to be fantastic because we’re beyond this little kid crap and we’re onto some jaded teenager story where Anakin gets pushed beyond his limits and he steps into the dark side. Yeah!!!!…no. Disappointing from starting dialogue to the credits. Exhaustingly, I had hope for Star Wars – Revenge of the Sith and thought to myself, “Surely they can’t (BLEEP) this up because now it’s going to be Anakin killing everything in sight.” It was equally bad, if not more disappointing. How can you go wrong with this three-act story? Ugh. So much went wrong with it.
Why am I telling you any of this? Well, my thoughts and feelings about Destiny 2 have run the same course as they did with the prequels. With every expansion and every season, I keep thinking that this is going to be the one that brings us what we have always been hoping for with the series.
This is not the one. We will have to wait again. And we all surely will.
Let’s talk about it.
This is all you need, Bungie
A story is all Bungie needs to get this gameplay going. This has been a plague of the series since the first Destiny game back in 2014. All Bungie needs to do is sit down, flowchart out the main story, break it into pieces, and assign a certain amount of gameplay and elements to each piece. But it all starts with a competent storyline that everyone can fall into, engage with, and remember for years to come. It’s honestly not that difficult to create a three-act narrative properly. You start with the introduction to the world and characters, move on to the crisis, and then conclude with a well-earned climax that makes you glad you took the time to experience it all.
And let me say, I certainly realize that there is an overall story to D2. I get it. Since the conclusion of the original campaign in Destiny 2, we have all wondered what the hell the pyramid ships are and why they are so dangerously important. The game has been building up to this moment. Fans have been anxiously awaiting this moment. This is our Anakin moment where he turns, and everything goes to shit with the world and characters. Sadly, this was a missed opportunity again.
Destiny 2: Lightfall is interesting. It has all these wonderful pieces and parts to the story, including the return of Calus, a character introduced a while ago in one of the cooler raids built for D2. The Witness finally shows up, our big baddie that is going to wreck the Traveler. And also introduced Neptune and its inhabitants, mainly Nimbus and Rohan, two cloud striders that protect Neptune and all its digital residents. We have a new planet, a revisited epic bad guy, a new bad guy, and two new heroes. All the ingredients were there for this story to truly come together and deliver what we have all been waiting for and…it simply doesn’t.
The first act of this story is glossed over. The Witness arrives, the Traveler reacts, and the Cabal is heading to Neptune to swipe some technology that the Traveler developed, and you have to chase them down before they obtain it. As soon as you meet the cloud striders on Neptune, you’re whisked off to act two. There is no real character building, there is no world building – it’s just instant.
Act two follows our guardian and the striders going after the shadow legion and hoping to prevent them from obtaining The Veil, a related entity/power to the Traveler. This act lasts maybe 2-4 hours in length and ends with the death of a character we just got to know, and an anti-climactic storyline that is more confusing than it is engaging.
The final act is the guardian versus a supped-up Calus and the fight isn’t incredibly difficult. The story ends…
*SPOILER ALERT*
…with The Witness opening the Traveler and going inside of it. And it legitimately ends there. We didn’t even get to fight The Witness. It’s just done.
*SPOILER ALERT ENDS*
This is not the story I had hoped for with this game at this point. It felt uninspired and respectfully docile with its intentions. It just never gets on any kind of track. In addition, the death of a new character was silly mainly because we didn’t even get to know that character long enough for their death to be impactful. When Cade died, it was impactful because we knew him over quite a few expansions. It was meaningful enough for there to be a statue in The Tower that I’m certain everyone has looked at more than once. It was a sad moment in Destiny’s history and it happened to a character that everyone got to know because they were developed. For this expansion, it just seems that this character’s death is a complete throwaway for almost no reason. And that’s truly tragic because the characters seem interesting.
Again, the story felt like it was wasted. It whiffed on The Witness, the weakness of the Traveler, and the introduction to the cloud striders. I’m just honestly baffled on how the story for this series just doesn’t add up from expansion to expansion. The moments can be neat, and the next sprinkle of characters and worlds is fascinating from time to time, but as a whole, it just doesn’t fit together well. I’m just confused about how that is possible. At some point, you either have to wipe what you have or sit down in a meeting and discuss exactly how the flow of the story should go.
At this point, I think that Destiny 3 needs to be pushed out or possibly Sony needs to lend some writers to the Bungie staff to put together a game that makes you care about what’s going on. Whatever must happen to make this better and right the ship, it needs to happen quickly. I still have blind faith that this is all going to be worth it by the end, but I’m losing it a little bit with every botched story part.
I’m taking this broken record off the player now. Let’s move on to the next item of interest – gameplay.
Life stranding
One of the more positive parts of Destiny 2: Lightfall is the gameplay. Bungie is a master of gameplay design. They know how to make a game feel good and they know how to make a first-person shooter feel more than just point-and-shoot. The new gameplay introduced in Lightfall might be grindy, but it is still fun to mess around with for hours upon hours.
The first big addition to this expansion is the Strand subclass. This is an element that was supposedly going to be introduced in the Witch Queen but was held back for this expansion. While it does seem a bit out of place, and the color scheme does still scream Witch Queen, the way it can be used makes it unique and fun. You can swing through Neptune like George of the Jungle using the once-fabled grenade slot that now features a strand with a hook. You can hook a strand in the air, or on a green strand ball, and propel yourself forward while dealing a vicious melee attack to unsuspecting enemies. It feels like a great gameplay addition to D2 and it makes sense within the world. It certainly changes how you can execute attacks or get away from sticky situations quickly. The controls for this feel good and they feel natural. Much like everything else that Bungie does with gameplay, it’s near perfection.
With Strand, you can also send out streaking green fish-like creatures to search and destroy enemies. That’s a cool way to stay out of the battle but do maximum damage. You also can unsheathe two green Strand swords (a tip of the hat to Halo swordplay) that can be fired from a distance or do major damage up close. The Strand subclass is one of the brighter spots in the gameplay in Lightfall and an excellent reason to check this expansion out.
On the adventure side of the tracks, Lightfall brings you some grindy gameplay. Is that a good thing? Well, you do have to level up for raid, which you must be at least 1770 to enjoy, but there are quite a few steps to get there. The missions for this expansion vary and they take some work. Whether you believe that is a good thing or not is up to you, but for me, I think Bungie had to make the grind a bit more intense, as players generally (for years) have zipped through missions and come to a point where content is absent.
For Lightfall, you will have multi-step missions that require you to grind out massive multi-step fights with the Vex, Shadow Legion, and the occasional tank, then do it over again to obtain items to unlock the weekly missions set forth. There is quite a bit of wash-rinse-repeat in Lightfall, but in its defense, it’s never boring. For example, there is a quest line for an exotic weapon that requires you to do the above grind in three different areas and eventually be given access to one final mission. This is done in three weeks, as the areas are individually accessible with each Destiny refresh. The weapon had better be worth the effort, and I’m assuming it is because this is quite the grind. The quest line is attached to the weekly bounty from Nimbus (cloud strider).
One of the more positive feelings about Lightfall is how big Neptune is in the game and the tiny secrets that it has hidden. For example, there is a collectible cloud strider action figure that is placed in three different locations that you have to find. It scores you a triumph and leads to some interesting battles. You can happen upon this randomly in the main city of Neomuna. The city also contains some hidden glowing objects that are placed in challenging areas. It’s basically a jumping puzzle of its own and one that is quite entertaining. I haven’t found them all, but I’m anxious to get back to the hunt. The city is big and it’s brimming with expandable pieces. My one hope is that Bungie returns to secret missions that pop up for a limited time, much like the Whisper of the Worm mission. They need to go back to those sorts of things to make going to Neptune more fun and have gamers want to explore the landscape. That’s one of the more fascinating parts of the Destiny universe. When you can get your gamer to explore, they’re going to get the most out of the moments they play your game.
As for the other content that is currently here or coming. The new Vanguard strike is fun, as are the missions that require you to go through multiple fights at once. It reminded me of the old missions on Mars where you went from location to location in X amount of time to destroy enemies and activate towers. It’s got the same concept.
Lightfall’s season contains a lot of hope to it. The promise of two new dungeons and a revisited raid makes me want to keep playing the game and get prepared. With the light cap sitting at 1810, the grind to get to that number before the next ‘big’ thing happens is going to keep gamers occupied with the grind. Much like every expansion that Bungie has produced for D2, there is plenty to do from the get-go, but always something around the corner to wait for when you’re done with the vanilla quests.
Raiding
The current raid is a beast, but not too difficult. It’s certainly no Garden of Salvation, which is a raid that has plagued me for years. I love it and I hate it. I also never completed it. I almost did once but we had a team member that messed up right at the end. Yes, we still talk to him. We still love him.
Anyway, the raid here is called Root of Nightmares and while it isn’t the hardest raid in the world, it demands accuracy, timing, and a lot of jumping. Lots of jumping. One of the cooler parts of the raid and something that should be praised is the visuals. This is probably one of the more gorgeous raids that Bungie has put together. Even when you die over and over again, you can appreciate the surroundings that are colorful, unicorn-like at times, and really damn big. Again, it’s not as challenging as some of the raids in the past for the series, but its difficulty comes with demanding near perfection in some areas. If you can dig that and enjoy it, then you’re going to be right at home with this raid.
Anyway, let’s wrap this up.
Conclusion
Destiny 2: Lightfall is disjointed in story, but pulls through with its gameplay. Something has to give with the former, as the story needs to be memorable and engaging, and this expansion simply didn’t get there in either category.
