Destiny 2 May Be Changing For the Better, But Bungie Sure Isn’t

In the stream following the reveal of Forsaken, Bungie’s representatives took some time to do fans a “favor” and better explain what exactly will be included in the Annual Pass. Put simply, it will consist of new challenges, new gear, new lore, new challenges and new events. It all sounds good doesn’t it; as if they’ve finally found a way to keep new content coming outside the major expansions? Except that just about all of this is content that, even as recently as this past April, was all offered free of charge. To some this change might not seem like a big deal, their likely reasoning being that Bungie shouldn’t have to work for free. That’s true. They shouldn’t and they never have been. They’ve always been paid for it through the microtransactions offered through the Eververse cash shop. What’s more, acquiring funding for these “free” updates was and is the entire justification for having the Eververse in the first place .

If there’s one problem with the Dreaming City, it’s the Blind Well. Working like the Court of Oryx and Archon Forge, players make sacrifices to draw out powerful enemies and, hopefully, earn powerful rewards. As in The Taken King, it’s an excellent idea for a mode that’s unfortunately executed poorly. As Fireteams can only hold three players outside of Crucible and Raids, who else you’ll get, if anyone else, is up to chance. It’s possible six other players with high-level gear will show up. It’s also possible for under-leveled players to hop in or even no extra players at all. The problem started with The Taken King and it’s disappointing Bungie hasn’t addressed all these years later.

The Worm God seems to be the most distressed, angry, and complicated boss in the game. Libras tend to avoid conflict and are generally gentle and diplomatic, but they might be able to relate to Xol’s (possible) insecurity due to being the weakest Worm

Let’s not mince words here, the Destiny community was in this exact situation three years ago in the months leading up the release of The Taken King. It was to be sold for a price of $40 and required the installation of all previous DLC, even though House of Wolves did not require the Dark Below. Players at the time were outraged at both the price tag and the need to purchase a DLC that was seemingly only required because Bungie said so. One would think the developer would learn a lesson from this, and they did; it was just the wrong one. We are now approaching the second year of Destiny 2 and Bungie is showing us exactly what they’ve learned: that they can get away with it. Curse of Osiris is almost universally panned as being unworthy of players’ time and money. It isn’t required to play Warmind, offers hardly any mechanical changes and yet Bungie, without offering any explanation, says it will be required for Forsaken all the same. This would be bad enough by itself, but Bungie isn’t content to stop there; no, they’ve decided that they need to milk their players even more than they already are, and they’re going to do it with the “Annual Pass.”

destiny 2 Story guide 2’s fourth expansion, Shadowkeep, and its most recent seasons have kept the positive momentum going. With the release of Shadowkeep, Guardians got to return to The Moon to take on nightmarish versions of many defeated foes. The main content additions also included two new strikes, one new Crucible map, two new-ish Crucible Maps and the “Garden of Salvation” raid. Shadowkeep also brought with it the reorganization of the Crucible and the launch of “Armor 2.0.”

Now that guardians have to directly pay for this content too, how exactly is there any justification whatsoever for keeping the Eververse around? As it currently stands: there isn’t. The Eververse now exists for the sole purpose of extracting extra money from eager players. This isn’t a free to play game like Fortnite. It’s a $60 premium AAA experience game. That price goes up to ~$170 for those who bought Destiny 2, its individual expansions, and who will buy both the $40 Forsaken and Bungie’s $30 Annual Pass. No matter how one slices it, that same old scumminess is still very present.

When Destiny 2 launched, it was arguably a shell of the original. Sure the story was a little more cinematic, but much of what had made Destiny fun and compelling was now strangely absent. Customizable class builds were gone, replaced by ones pre-made by Bungie. Randomly-rolled loot was gone too; now all one had to do was get a gun once and that was it. No more chasing godrolls. Supers were toned-down and put on an excessively long timer; the other abilities were too. There was “more” to do in the hub-worlds too, but it all somehow came-off as even more shallow than the activities available in the original. Throw an over-emphasized Eververse and a merely “okay” raid (with disappointing loot) on top of that and the recipe for a disastrous launch period is complete.

The Solstice title for the summer event is Flamekeeper and comes packaged similarly to the last two entries, with an event card, special tasks to do, and engaging with the event’s activity, Bonfire B

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