To be a Destiny participant is to eat. To voraciously devour nice wads of Content, like certainly one of its big inter-dimensional area worm gods gorging on a planetoid, after which, by no means sated, transferring on to the subsequent.
The latest feast is Shadowkeep. It’s as fantastically crafted as ever. We get to eat the Moon! It seems beautiful and it’s enjoyable and peculiar and I adore it. But whereas it makes numerous little modifications, I believe it’s exhibiting Destiny 2 has reached the very limits of what it might do. Maybe that’s why Shadowkeep delivers such a heavy dose of nostalgia for the sequence’ oldest gamers. After all, what higher option to obfuscate a raft of recent content material that’s wanting decidedly acquainted?
Shadowkeep takes us to the Moon, child. Lootin’ and shootin’ within the Archer’s Line, smackin’ up Acolytes within the Circle of Bones, and runnin’ all the way down to Phogoth the Untamed’s jail within the very bowels of the Hellmouth. By gosh, it’s good to be again. The Moon is Shadowkeep’s new free-roam vacation spot, and it options the total sprawl of lunar bases and eldritch underground tunnels that have been established within the unique Destiny, plus some additional ones, together with the Scarlet Keep, a shocking pink Hive edifice which has erupted from beneath the gray floor, and grounds exterior the place extra-powerful Hive variants referred to as Nightmares manifest.
The story is that everybody’s favorite gnomic emo, Eris Morn, has gone lacking, and what’s this? She’s returned to the Moon? Why’d she go there? Isn’t that the place she received trapped underground and needed to dwell for years alongside undead horrorshow faction the Hive, dropping her marbles within the course of? And what’s this? She’s now gone and by chance unleashed a good worse load of Hive, whereas concurrently uncovering one thing even badlier down within the lunar depths.
The scene-setting for all this can be a lot of enjoyable. Eris will get to say issues like, “Madness, malaise and agony of the flesh,” and “Our cryptoglyph lies at the bottom of the Hellmouth”. Under the roars and growls of Knights, Ogres and Wizards, there’s a soundtrack that brings in a 2001-style discordant choir to underline the weird otherness of the lunar panorama.
It’s all fairly spooky, in actual fact, according to Bungie’s declare that Shadowkeep is all about psychological horror. Aside from basic stuff just like the lights generally going out and Thralls bursting out from the blackness, the storyline is about humanity dealing with the horrors it has dedicated with the intention to survive over the course of its in-game historical past. As a outcome, each spare inch of the moon is plagued by moaning figures of useless Guardians, serving as slightly literal reminders of your previous 5 years of pleased taking pictures.
As ever, the story is an evocative backdrop to what you’re actually doing, which is attempting to grasp all the brand new techniques and gadgets and actions Shadowkeep throws you into. Well, I say ‘new’. Most are new names for outdated ideas. Broadly talking, Upgrade Modules are the outdated Enhancement Cores, which in flip have been the outdated Legendary Shards. These are the gadgets which aid you improve your gear, and whereas their addition means I now have a very full consumables stock, it’s in any other case very a lot enterprise as typical: grubbing via a schedule of actions to get gear that’ll push my degree up from the beginning degree of 750 to 900, after which to 940, while you’re able to face the brand new raid and progress as much as 960.
So, the brand new actions. The first issues that Shadowkeep’s story marketing campaign pushes you in the direction of are Essence quests, that are a bit like Black Armory’s weapon frames. Tantalising merchandise names like Essence of Brutality compel you to kill stuff with particular weapons, earlier than cashing in on the Lectern of Enchantment for a named weapon or piece of armour from a brand new Moon-themed set. I like the brand new gear, from the charms-and-safety-cord-bound guns to the great Neil-Armstrong’s-eldritch-lunar-expedition Dreambane armour set).
Then there are Nightmare Hunts, that are blistering three-player runs on the Moon towards Nightmare incarnations of a few of Desto’s basic boss fights. They’re wonderful! You need to chew up robust nightmare mobs whereas remembering tips on how to battle outdated Taniks, they usually’re over fairly shortly. You can, nevertheless, select your issue degree with the intention to max out the rewards. But the intelligent factor is the way in which the Dreambane set performs into them, exhibiting off Bungie’s deftness of hand in designing the game’s techniques to work with the massive new points of interest.
You see, Dreambane armour is preloaded with mods that cut back harm from nightmares, and mods are one of many two methods Shadowkeep has overhauled how gear works. Many standing mods nonetheless exist, however there are numerous new ones, many earned via an merchandise referred to as the The Gate Lord’s Eye, which, over time, helps you to unlock mods from a desk.
Weapons nonetheless slot one mod, however armour helps a number of, and now has you investing your Legendary Shards, Upgrade Modules and even your Enhancement Prisms. Each mod comes with an vitality price, too: your piece of substances has to have sufficient energy from its Armour Tier degree to fit them, so that you’ll be making arduous selections between quick-loading submachine weapons and a 10-point mobility enhance, or a mod that reinforces hand-cannon harm and offers staggers on aiming-down sights. There are additionally mods which let you shoot proper via shields (fuck you, Hobgoblins!) and boundaries. This is essential for taking part in Vex Offensives, which we’ll go into shortly, and better degree Nightmare Hunts.
The level of all this, should you discovered your self glazing during the last paragraph? Mods neatly tie in with the stuff you’re enjoying, and it made me really feel intelligent and pleased.
Beyond mods, You can do extra with armour because of Bungie including three extra stats to it, for a complete of six. Mobility, resilience and restoration stay, governing pace, toughness and how briskly your defend regeneratess. Now, nevertheless, the outdated self-discipline, mind and power stats return, governing cooldowns on grenades, tremendous and melee skills. It is smart that these variables (which was affected by mods and particular skills on gear) have been lumped in collectively: the system is extra readable now, and higher at explaining cooldown instances, plus there are new methods to tinker together with your loadout. If you want fiddling and finessing, there’s tons to be achieved.
Vex Offensive is the final new function to unlock. It’s a three-phase enviornment battle that takes place within the Vex’s Black Garden, which is a bizarre, verdant, summary, pc simulation… factor. I discover it barely odd that an enlargement so targeted on the Hive ought to abruptly flip its consideration to the Vex. It apparently is smart within the story (the Vex are coming to the Moon as a result of they’re within the Bad Pyramid what’s been discovered inside it, I believe?), but it surely positively feels disconnected.
More urgently, the Vex Offensive is one more coop enviornment mode so as to add to The Menagerie, The Reckoning, Blind Well and Forges. The similar goes for the dwell Vex Invasion occasions on the Moon, that are similar to the Escalation Protocol occasions on Mars. It’s all intense and enjoyable, identical to nearly something Bungie provides to Destiny 2, however the most effective factor concerning the Vex Offensive is that it doesn’t impose a excessive barrier to entry. Bungie has discovered from the Black Armory and Forge occasions, which remained out of attain of many gamers for weeks as they slowly levelled up, because the Vex content material is on the market as quickly as you unlock it within the marketing campaign quest chain. That’s good! But there’s a draw back: in opening up one thing so quickly, it would really feel outdated sooner, too.
It’s bizarre to say it, however Shadowkeep’s drawback is that numerous the issues and arduous questions that Destiny 2’s first 12 months threw up have been solved for the reason that Forsaken enlargement a 12 months in the past. Shadowkeep hasn’t needed to repair something, solely attend the age-old problem of conserving gamers on the Destiny treadmill. As a outcome, every thing feels awfully acquainted, from the massive occasions proper all the way down to the search varieties, that are nonetheless largely about incomes foreign money to purchase a quest that wins you a roll on a brand new merchandise of substances.
By now, Bungie has gotten good at binding all this collectively; the various, many quests are mutually supportive, in order that progress in a single kicks off progress in one other, and one other and one other. It quietly pushes you to play in locations you may’ve forgotten about, in methods you disregarded, or use gun varieties you thought you didn’t like, whereas sticking to day by day and weekly routines end in drops that elevate your energy degree. It’s a intelligent and powerfully compulsive machine – but it surely’s not precisely thrilling.
Here at the beginning of Destiny 2’s third 12 months (and the fifth for the reason that unique got here out), there’s an actual sense that it’s already plumbed the depths of what its loot-shooting motion can do; that we’re going to be happening dungeon runs and weapon quests and doing the dance between shielded bosses and combating again provides, ceaselessly.
I maintain questioning if there’s an inherent acknowledgement of all this in setting Shadowkeep on the Moon, the place Destiny started, and having you battle outdated bosses. Nostalgia tends to be an excellent transfer when there’s nothing new on the horizon, in spite of everything. Alas. Even if Destiny’s horizon does appear as featureless because the moon itself, there’s nonetheless loads of enjoyable available in gobbling up every thing in sight on the way in which there.
