Destiny 2’s upcoming enlargement, The Edge of Fate, launches at an unsure time within the lengthy lifespan of Destiny 2. It follows the high-octane fruits of Destiny’s first period, The Last Form, and a collection of transitional episodes that tried to tie up some free narrative threads. You’d be forgiven for those who fell off of Destiny 2 after The Last Form–after all, closing is correct there within the identify. Developer Bungie appears to be attempting to stroll a tightrope with this new enlargement: ideally, The Edge of Fate will likely be sufficient to convey again lapsed gamers, nevertheless it additionally wants to present Destiny 2 a shot within the arm that can maintain avid superfans engaged for the foreseeable future.
I just lately had the chance to dig into The Edge of Fate at a preview occasion hosted by Bungie, and after round eight hours of gameplay, I can confidently say that the enlargement’s huge modifications convey new life to the sport. Its marketing campaign takes some huge swings with its environmental puzzles and new strategies of traversal, and it overhauls Destiny 2’s core gameplay to make it considerably extra streamlined and understandable. It stays to be seen if that is sufficient to revitalize Destiny 2 with the numbers it as soon as had or reinforce the sport’s standing as a live-service powerhouse, nevertheless it is sufficient to make me wish to play extra.
The Edge of Fate is headlined by a narrative marketing campaign that takes gamers to Kepler, a brand new location positioned on the far fringe of the photo voltaic system. Following the conclusion of the story of the battle between the Traveler and the Witness in The Last Form, The Edge of Fate shifts narrative focus to The 9, shadowy supernatural beings that predate the Traveler’s arrival within the photo voltaic system. As an alternative of powers linked to Mild and Darkness, which outlined all of Destiny’s earlier expansions, The Edge of Fate introduces powers associated to darkish matter–which, in Destiny’s universe, is a usable useful resource that permeates Kepler. The narrative that unfolds options new civilizations, enemies, and a bearded and hipster-glasses-wearing human with an enigmatic backstory and unsure motives named Lodi.
I spent my time exploring Kepler and interesting with the early a part of the enlargement’s story, and whereas I discovered among the narrative hooks intriguing, I used to be most impressed with Kepler’s world design. The distant planetoid is distinct from Destiny 2’s different places: The darkish matter seems as yellow-orange fungal growths that cowl lots of the surfaces, serving as natural ornamentation for purple canyons and purple-green tunnels. The place shouldn’t be fully alien, though–human structure, autos, and objects are strewn all through the world, bringing an eerie sense of familiarity to an in any other case international place. One of the vital impactful scenes within the enlargement comes proper firstly of the opening mission, while you gaze out from a vista at a skybox dominated by a colossal plane service.
The darkish matter subtle all through Kepler powers the brand new talents that you simply purchase all through the marketing campaign. In distinction to how Destiny’s subclasses and related abilities have historically centered on fight, Kepler’s “vacation spot talents” (that means they’re solely usable whereas on Kepler) are geared towards navigating environments and discovering secrets and techniques. Whereas platforming and light-weight puzzle-solving have all the time appeared in Destiny campaigns, The Edge of Fate leans extra into environmental puzzles than earlier expansions, drawing straight on Bungie’s previous expertise with Dungeons and Raids. As such, the brand new talents all present methods of shifting by way of or manipulating ranges.
The first capability you obtain is known as Matterspark, and it transforms your character right into a compact, glowing ball of vitality. When you can harm enemies utilizing sparks of vitality jettisoned off of your new spherical kind, the principle goal of Matterspark is to mean you can journey by way of tunnels, air ducts, and tight areas, and to cost up places all through the world that open doorways or chests. One other capability, referred to as Matterform, equally supplies new technique of traversal, permitting you to control specific components of the environment–such as sheets of metallic or free walls–into momentary bridges and ladders. Many missions that I performed additionally closely used the Relocator Cannon, an merchandise you decide up at sure factors that allows you to create portals to maneuver by way of in any other case inaccessible obstacles.
These talents are key to Bungie’s objective of constructing The Edge of Fate play extra like a metroidvania than a linear, first-person shooter. The developer has, in truth, invoked this style a number of occasions in its discussions concerning the enlargement; recreation director Tyson Inexperienced instructed me in an interview that the crew was straight impressed by Metroid and Hole Knight when designing the brand new marketing campaign. In my time with the sport, I discovered that these new talents supplied a welcome injection of latest mechanics into the in any other case fairly acquainted Destiny 2 gameplay. Discovering secrets and techniques and determining traverse by way of new areas is gratifying, and the promise of having the ability to return to previous areas to make use of upgraded talents to unlock beforehand unattainable chests provides a enjoyable purpose to retread earlier paths and absolutely discover this new planet.
As is regularly the case with environmental puzzles in shooters, although, the road between enjoyably difficult and deeply irritating is a skinny one. There have been a number of situations all through my time on Kepler the place I struggled to seek out the precise nooks and crannies that I wanted to maneuver my Matterspark ball into; a few of these moments of fruitless looking actually doubled the size of what was in any other case a compact mission. I used to be enjoying an early construct and Bungie is conscious of among the significantly opaque moments of Matterspark traversal, so these could also be improved by launch. I’m cautiously optimistic that the skills will likely be a welcome change of tempo, however Bungie is unquestionably taking dangers with the intention to shake up Destiny’s method.
In tandem with the brand new marketing campaign that unfolds on Kepler, Bungie can be implementing important revisions to the core Destiny 2 expertise. Whereas the modifications are quite a few, two of the obvious and impactful are an overhaul of the sport’s UI–called the Portal–and the addition of a capturing vary.
These might sound like marginal updates, however in a recreation as advanced as Destiny 2, they make an enormous distinction. The Portal represents a basic break from Destiny’s previous, as Bungie is deprioritizing the acquainted locations map and implementing a streamlined menu-based system for choosing and customizing actions. The developer is making an attempt to throw out Destiny’s pretty obfuscated rewards system and the multi-layered map that has usually hidden actions away in far corners. It’s supplanting them with a system that’s meant to present speedy details about what actions can be found, how tough these actions are, what rewards you may count on upon finishing them, and any highlighted occasions or modifiers they could embrace.
The most effective examples of how the Portal goals to make Destiny 2 extra digestible for all sorts of gamers is the way it organizes actions on the premise of the best way you wish to play. As an individual who performs nearly completely solo, I’ve lengthy been annoyed by the best way that Destiny 2 hides or discourages actions which might be good for enjoying alone. The Portal improves this by having “Solo Ops” as certainly one of its 4 core classes of actions. In addition to curating a set of missions which might be extremely suitable for brief play classes, the interface additionally made it clear that I might not be punished with lesser rewards or slower development for selecting to go solo. Different classes embrace Fireteam Ops, for Strikes and missions which might be constructed for the traditional three-person Destiny expertise; Pinnacle Ops, for significantly difficult missions that reward one of the best loot; and Crucible Ops, for PvP gameplay.
The Portal’s different transformative change is the inclusion of a way more intensive set of modifiers and choices that you need to use to customise a mission’s problem to your liking. This can be a big change over Destiny’s previous, the place missions typically have just a few problem settings and little granular management over the gameplay expertise. Now, you may select from dozens of various buffs and de-buffs, evocative of the best way that discovering Halo’s collectible Skulls unlocked a collection of choices to tune specific components of the sport. These all have an effect on scoring multipliers, which themselves have an effect on what number of rewards you’ll be able to earn in a mission. In addition to permitting high-level gamers to create excessive challenges, it additionally enables you to, for instance, tune issues to make a mission simpler to finish in much less time.
I discovered the Portal genuinely transformative to the Destiny 2 gameplay loop. Whereas I’ve all the time typically preferred using the vacation spot map, the enhancements to visibility and customizability that the Portal implements will make the sport extra gratifying and replayable for a lot of several types of gamers. I even ended up replaying fast missions a number of occasions throughout my preview, simply because I used to be invested in seeing how completely different mixtures of modifiers would have an effect on my efficiency, enemy problem, and the rewards I obtained. It was thrilling to attempt to push my limits, and that pleasure was pushed by the truth that I obtained to decide on precisely how I used to be going to get challenged.
The different huge change to the core Destiny 2 gameplay, the addition of a capturing vary, is designed to learn each newbie and professional gamers. Destiny 2’s gear and stats system is very advanced, combining each intrinsic weapon and armor perks, user-selected mods, and improve mechanics. This has resulted in high-level play more and more oriented round build-crafting, or the creation of mixtures of substances and mods which might be most suited to specific duties. Nevertheless, this course of is extra concerned than, say, making a loadout in Name of Responsibility. It may be extraordinarily tough to determine precisely how armor and weapon perks work together, or how marginal will increase in character stats influence one’s efficiency. I’ve performed Destiny 2 for tons of of hours and I’m nonetheless a relative newbie at build-crafting, as I’ve discovered evaluating mixtures of substances to typically be too tough and time-consuming.
The capturing vary is Bungie’s try and encourage gamers to have interaction extra deeply with builds. Situated in a nook of the Tower, the capturing vary lets gamers safely experiment with completely different weapons, gear, and mods to determine precisely how they wish to strategy sure encounters or mission sorts. There are a lot of buttons to hit to vary the capturing vary’s setup (you actually shoot buttons to modify settings), together with what enemy sorts are included, whether or not a champion spawns, and whether or not the enemies ought to interact in fight with you. There’s even a giant scoreboard that tells you precisely how a lot harm per second you will have placed on a goal.
It is a stat nerd’s dream, however it is usually a profoundly helpful approach of studying Destiny’s extra concerned mechanics. Even within the quick time I spent on the vary, I discovered myself rapidly choosing up on gear complexities that I hadn’t been keen to have interaction with prior to now. I used to be capable of rigorously examine how the perks on the brand new Unique weapons labored, and I discovered match sure mods to considerably enhance my fight effectiveness.
There are dozens extra additions and tweaks that Bungie is implementing with The Edge of Fate–including a simplification of the armor and energy systems–that I typically discovered to make my gameplay expertise extra gratifying. Nevertheless, it’s nonetheless unclear if Bungie has achieved sufficient to convey again the lapsed Destiny gamers who’ve fallen off in some unspecified time in the future over the sport’s lengthy historical past, or to entice new gamers who’ve by no means touched the sport earlier than. Destiny is a frightening recreation in some ways, and regardless of The Edge of Fate making an attempt to provoke a brand new, extra welcoming part, there may be numerous narrative and mechanical intricacy that has amassed through the years. Bungie has to discover a option to concurrently sign that it is a good time to (re)be a part of the Destiny group, whereas additionally giving its dedicated gamers each continuity and new treasures to chase.
In the absence of a very clear break within the type of a brand new sequel, I do not assume this problem is getting any simpler–and I am undecided Kepler, the Portal, and the Capturing Vary will absolutely clear up it. Regardless of all that, I’m optimistic concerning the swings that Bungie is taking with the enlargement, particularly those who overhaul the core recreation. You’re prone to discover me spending an excessive amount of time fidgeting with weapon mods on the capturing vary when The Edge of Fate launches on July 19.