Destiny 2 has just received its latest expansion, ‘The Edge of Fate’, ushering the game into a brand new era.
We’re now 11 years into Destiny 2‘s life cycle, which begs the question: what’s left for the gaming franchise?
Just last year, developers Bungie Studios released The Final Shape, a narrative-heavy expansion bringing an epic finale to the story the game has been telling since the first Destiny was released. Now, with its latest expansion, The Edge of Fate, it’s looking for a fresh start.
Starting a new chapter in a live-service game like Destiny is always a tough job. One only needs to look at the mixed reactions to Final Fantasy XIV‘s latest expansion for a recent example. The opportunity of a fresh chapter in a game with such a long life cycle is a chance to onboard new players. However, this also runs the risk of alienating your core player base. You also don’t want to run the risk of replaying the hits and boring people, either.
What is The Edge of Fate about?
After receiving a mysterious call, we discover an ancient threat that predates The Traveller. With help from Lodi, a new ally from a distant place, and the Warlock Vanguard Ikora Rey, players will travel to the hidden corners of the solar system and respond to a call that will shake our perceptions of reality.
The Edge of Fate campaign takes place on the mysterious and distant world Kepler. In classic Destiny fashion, this world has unique powers we can harness, allowing us access to new abilities like Matterspark, which turns you into a ball of lightning. You can use this not only to zap through enemies, but also to traverse through the world.
This new chapter of the game lays the groundwork for the next few years of Destiny 2, and gets us invested in upcoming seasons. Naturally, this might be jarring to long-term players, but Bungie’s goal here is to guide new players into the world-building of Destiny 2. Starting with a fresh mystery not connected to the expansive years of lore seems like a pretty good bet to me.
What’s new in the latest Destiny 2 expansion?
As you can expect with a new Destiny 2 expansion, we get a brand new world to explore, some exciting new abilities, a new chapter in the story, and, of course, more bad guys to shoot at.
While the new story and content for the game are all well and nice, I’d argue the real meat of this expansion is the abundance of quality of life changes made to the game.
Before the release of Edge of Fate, Bungie dropped a massive 10k-word-long blog post detailing a significant list of patch notes for Destiny 2. The developers said that all of these changes have been made to revamp the new player experience and declutter the game.
There are too many changes to list here, so I recommend taking a glance yourself. But some of the most notable changes are that Bungie has reduced the number of in-game pop-ups that attack you when you first launch the game.
The game has also implemented a new Portal UI hub where players can ‘quick launch’ new activities related to the latest expansion or seasonal content. No longer will players be thrown into whatever new activity Destiny introduces the moment they boot up the game. You get to pick when you’re ready to tackle new content.
Players have also received a level reset, bringing everyone back to the humble power level of 10, with a maximum level of 200.
Significant changes have been made to how gear works in the game as well. With the new expansion, the ‘Armour 3.0’ system has been introduced, overhauling stats and introducing new set bonuses. Now, if you pair two or more matching armour pieces together, you’ll get a neat boost in stats. There are also some new tier systems for weapons and items, with higher tiers dropping special perks.
What do fans think of Destiny 2’s latest expansion?
Thankfully, it’s looking like fans are mostly on board with the direction the story is taking. However, it seems like players remain mixed on the new changes to combat.
In a Reddit thread on r/DestinyTheGame, players are noting countless bugs and frustrations with the brand-new Matterspark mechanic. u/poagurt said, “It’s hard to overstate how little I want to interact with the matter spark mechanic. It feels terrible to use.”
Reviews on Steam are also suggesting that the new expansion is middling. As of writing, the game has received 98 reviews, earning a “Mixed” rating.
Similar to Reddit, Steam users have been quick to note their grievances with the matterspark mechanic, but praise Bungie for providing more clarity in its system changes. As Steam user <blank> put in their review, “This expansion brings meaningful improvements to Destiny’s structure, especially for lapsed or returning players”.
Truthfully, the reception for the expansion isn’t too surprising. As I mentioned above, starting a new chapter in a story and overhauling the game’s experience is sure to be divisive for the fan base. Especially one as passionate and vocal as Destiny 2. I’d also be remiss to mention that, despite the success of The Final Shape, Bungie had laid off a significant amount of its workforce. So, given that the Destiny crew was working with significantly fewer resources here, I’d still say this is a win for the team.
Hopefully, the work done here sets a stable roadmap for the future of the game, and Bungie is able to steer the ship for the next year.
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