Back to the grind

After playing far too much of the original Destiny, I had some tepid interest going into the sequel, in part because of some of the announced changes and also because I had just kind of burned myself out on it. I was surprised how hard I fell into the sequel, with its more cohesive presentation, quality of life enhancements (no more going to orbit!) and of course the incredible feel of the shooting. That enthusiasm was short lived though, as the weapon changes effectively turned a loot game into a collection game, and I quickly ran out of both things to chase, and friends interested in chasing with me. With little to no interest among my friends and less than stellar reviews, I skipped both of the previous expansions (which it should be noted are required to play Forsaken), but couldn’t resist seeing if Forsaken is to Destiny 2 what Taken King was to the original.

To be clear, I have not played the earlier expansions, or Destiny 2 in general, for several months. I have occasionally checked in on the community and dev notes, to see if the game was moving in a direction that might catch my interest. One of the biggest draws of Forsaken is that it brings back random weapons rolls, the lack of which was my biggest enthusiasm killer of the base game. With every item having the same set perks, the game quickly turned every drop into infusion fuel to raise the level of your chosen weapon. With variable drops (exotics and some named items still have set perks) I was back to switching things up, trying new loadouts and actually caring when I got something new. Definitely an improvement.

MSRP: $59.99 (legendary collection), $99.99 (complete collection)
Platforms: PS4 (reviewed), XB1, PC

The other big lure for me was mostly undoing my other big gripe, which was moving secondary weapons like shotguns and sniper rifles into the heavy weapon category. The result was having energy (elemental) weapons of all types, which was actually useful, at the expense of making some weapons impractical. Choosing a sniper rifle over a rocket launcher simply isn’t going to happen. Under the revised system heavy weapons are back as they were, and other weapon classes have both kinetic and energy variants. Ammo still varies by weapon type, so running around with two shotguns is fun but the reserves run dry quickly. My only real annoyance was that in cases where my primary weapon was energy, when switching off the heavy weapon it defaults to the kinetic slot. It’s always been that way, but now it’s awkward. Hopefully a future update will return to whatever weapon the player was previously using.

That I’ve gotten this far without talking about the big hook of Forsaken is something of a tell. The main story revolves around the much hyped death of Cayde. It starts out well enough, but there is a series of targets that are largely uninteresting and become a chore. The game alludes to there being a difference between seeking vengeance and seeking justice, but doesn’t do enough with the concept to have any real weight to it. As expected completing those missions triggered a flurry of quests and other pursuits, to the point that between those and daily/weekly bounties I actually hit the max of 50 at one point.

Forsaken adds the Tangled Shore location, complete with patrols, lost sectors, and all of the usual suspects. In a strange move the second new location is hidden behind what looks (and feels) like a side quest, so much so that I almost didn’t find it. It’s also where the grind begins. Throughout the story I always seemed to be right where I needed to be in power level to do the next thing, but the recommended power for reaching the Dreaming City is 500, while the activities there immediately jump to 530. It’s not undoable, but regular item drops also cap around 500, so running around the Dreaming City killing things wasn’t actually making me stronger.

In order to progress past 500 I had to seek out activities that reward “Powerful Gear”, which is effectively activities that guarantee a drop that’s better than the highest item in whatever category it drops in. What the game doesn’t tell players is that Powerful Gear activities are not all created equal, and depending on where my overall level was, one activity type might give me a +1 or +2 drop, while another would give me a +5 or more drop. The result is that once I hit 520 I needed to start doing 540 activities to really advance, which quickly led to a place where I was either barely making progress or getting killed a ton because I was underleveled for the activity I was taking on. Especially when playing solo, this became a major grind either way I went. It doesn’t help that infusion (using higher gear you don’t want to raise the level of stuff you like) costs are way too high, which means in order to grind that higher content I was often using weapons and armor I didn’t like, just because it was higher level.

Forsaken also adds the new Gambit activity, a hybrid PvE/PvP game that has teams racing to dispatch enemies and collect motes in order to summon a boss, kill it and win the round. Motes need to be deposited in the bank, and banking enough can summon a powerful enemy to block opponents from banking their motes. In addition, at certain times players can invade the other side and attack opposing players, causing them to lose motes or healing their boss. Like any objective mode it’s best when coordinating with friends, but there’s enough flexibility to it that I was generally successful with randoms just by trying to match the strategy it seemed like the rest of the team was following.

The Forsaken expansion is tough to score, because even after 20+ hours I’m not sure how I feel about it. Certainly I feel like Destiny 2 is better than when I stopped playing all those months ago, but the reality is that most of the things I am excited about is Bungie reverting changes that were bad ideas from the beginning. It’s hard to give a lot of credit for fixing something to the person who broke it originally. Still, it’s a fantastic shooter experience, and I found myself doing things that weren’t really going to advance me just because I was having enough fun that I didn’t care. It’s worth pointing out that there is an update in the works to adjust some of the requirements around infusion, so some of these other issues may get ironed out as well over time. For those who may have wandered away from Destiny 2, the choice on Forsaken may come down to whether or not friends are jumping in. For newcomers, the Destiny 2 Legendary Collection is $60 and includes the base game and all expansions to this point, which is a ton of content for an enjoyable if flawed shooter.

Review copy of game provided by publisher.

Good
  • Weapon slot revisions (mostly)
  • Additional subclass options
  • More ways to earn powerful gear...
Bad
  • ...that are not all equal
  • Main story is lackluster
  • Infusion costs are unreasonably high
7
Good
Written by
Dave enjoys playing video games almost as much as he enjoys buying video games. What his wife calls an "online shopping addiction" he calls "building a library". When he's not digging through the backlog he's hunting for loot in Diablo or wondering when the next Professor Layton game is coming.