Over the last 2 weeks, we’ve hunted down Uldren, and began exploring the mysteries of the Dreaming City in Destiny 2: Forsaken. This past Friday, a brave team of 6 entered The Last Wish raid. After 18 hours 45 minutes, they emerged victorious. However, the defeat of the raid boss unleashed a curse on the Dreaming City that is now getting progressively stronger.
The Dreaming City changed the instant the raid was completed. This made the world’s first raid team a part of the game’s lore. We landed in the Dreaming City Saturday morning. This week, things have gotten even worse.
Not Done Yet
We partner with Petra Venj, the Queen’s Emissary, to find the source of this new curse and snuff it out. Forsaken’s story is still ongoing, and that is an incredible thing. Destiny is finally delivering on the promise of a dynamic world where we can affect the world at large. We have yet to discover everything the game has to offer thanks to a nearly perfect execution of a new power leveling system.
Many of the game’s activities are still too difficult for most to complete, including the raid. On the first day of King’s Fall, (Destiny: The Taken King’s raid from a couple years ago), just over 3700 people had competed the raid. In the Last Wish and Forsaken, that number was just 12.
Two teams. Only two teams managed to complete the raid within the first 24 hours of its availability. The third team beat it 2 minutes after the 24-hour cutoff to acquire an exclusive day 1 emblem.
Rising From the Ashes
Continuing our review conversation, this week I want to take a look at where Forsaken came from, and why it could only exist after Destiny 2‘s initial failures during its first year. To clarify, let’s take a look back at the major beats that caused the issues of year one. The successes of the Destiny 2 launch shouldn’t go without notice.
Destiny 2 delivered on a cohesive and satisfying narrative, which featured compelling story elements throughout. The story may have been a little cliche and predictable, but the important thing was that it was there. Unlike the launch of Destiny 1, Destiny 2 didn’t feel like an incomplete game. Even the endgame seemed to satisfy for a good long while. Over time, all of the game’s flaws reared their ugly heads. Bungie had over-corrected.
They sacrificed the fun of the first game for the sake of cleaner, streamlined experience; focusing on presenting a more approachable story. To Bungie’s credit, it worked. Destiny 2 has an enormous launch and especially with the PC release, caught the attention of many. But it didn’t last.
A New Hope
Through a lackluster first expansion and misguided live events that were too focused on cosmetics, it became clear that somewhere, someone made a series of bad calls. The game was slow, time to kills were slowed down to promote more tactical approaches. The weapon system was changed, which lead to less overall power output. There was no real endgame in sight.
The only worthwhile endgame content was the raid and weekly nightfall strike. Even then, those were marred with poor rewards, resulting in very little incentive to play. The Crucible (Destiny’s PvP) also suffered from the re-balancing of power. The game was dull and slow. Destiny 2 had re-established a strong foundation, but unfortunately, built a cardboard building on top of it.
This naturally lead to a large fallout of players. On top of that, Bungie made some bad decisions in regards to Eververse, their micro transaction-based cosmetics system, which only angered players further. Things got so bad that the future of the franchise was in question.
In the spring, Bungie held a community summit for the first time, inviting 40 members of the Destiny content creator community to discuss the game’s direction. Something special happened when they all returned. They all had a gleam of hope in their eyes and voices. They had seen something. It became obvious that the developers at Bungie heard our feedback loud and clear, and had begun working on their response.
Resurgence
With Destiny’s second expansion DLC Warmind, things began to look up. Warmind brought challenging activities with specific pursuits. It gave you a reason to want to play every week. Shortly after the release of Warmind, Bungie revealed their plans to redeem Destiny 2 with Forsaken. Through a very memorable ViDoc video, they outlined all of the the changes that they were implementing. It showed off reasons why we would want to come back and play every single day.
Fast forward to today, the third week of Forsaken’s launch, and I can confidently say they achieved that goal. There is so much to do in this game that it has actually become difficult to maintain 3 characters (which most hobbies players have). Bungie did all the right things with Forsaken. The game is now even more fun to play. It is faster, more action packed, and more “Destiny” than ever.
I get on every day and do whatever I or my clan-mates feel like doing. We chat about the game’s mysteries, its pinnacle challenges, and compare weapon drops. It’s easy to be fully engaged and immersed, and through its streamlined systems I never feel overwhelmed with options. They are all out there, and I can play what I wanna play.
Before, it was hard recommending Destiny to friends. Thanks to Forsaken, it’s a no-brainer. If you like looter shooters, or loot-based games in general, you will love Forsaken. It is definitely worth every penny of its price tag. Only time will tell, but I think Destiny 2 will be remembered mostly for Forsaken and it’s second year. Maybe even redefining what to expect from the Destiny franchise.
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