This retiring weekend , I sat down to get an end to a tarradiddle I have been following for the good part of the last 10 years of my living : Bungie ’s Destiny saga , told across two secret plan , myriad expansions , season of living - biz capacity , and many crushing highs and lows , come to what has long been shaped as its first right end .
It ended in a elbow room that was perhaps symbolic of these 10 years I ’ve spent with Destiny — a game that I have followed ever since it was breathlessly talk about asthe next gamefrom the people that made Halo , all the way through to the many time I block and started playing again no matter how insistent I was that whatever latest arcane figure change orlackluster content drophad fail to hook me was the thing that would make me put it down for good . By which I signify , in equal percentage sentiment and perplexed frustration .
The Final Shape , the plot ’s a la mode expansion , released ahead of time last week , and I was enjoying it in the moment — with its narration focused intently , for the first time in years , explicitly on the bonds of friendship between the closest matter Destiny has had to main characters in the strain of Commander Zavala , Ikora Ray , and Cayde-6 , the emblematic drawing card of the Guardian Vanguard , as they prepared to face the Witness , this ancient villain teased through year of esoteric lore and premonition . But when it climax with what was essentially a bad cutscene of your player character and the Vanguard campaign away from the Witness , merely offend them rather than finishing the chore , fundamentally saying “ please wait for the raid to drop down ” rather of issue forth to a remotely satisfying conclusion , I found myself perplexed .
Screenshot: Bungie/Gizmodo
Had all this been leading to my character — the same Warlock I made in the original Destiny Alpha , that I refashion for the first secret plan in 2014 , and have played ever since , for almost as long as I have cultivate at io9 — fundamentally wait on the sidelines while people who actually did the game ’s ambitious raid content would get to see the “ real ” ending ? I ’ve never had the time , solitaire , or honestly the social roundabout to on a regular basis interact with this finical aspect of Destiny ’s famously perplexing and difficult endgame modes , but leaving the cathartic last conflict against this long - anticipated foe up to a mode that has , historically , struggled to attract Destiny role player beyond the hardest of its hardcore , feel like a damp squib .
gratefully , that was n’t the font . After the first teams of player cannonball along to be the first to finish The Final Shape ’s raid , Salvation ’s Edge , it was revealed there was in reality one more surprise in Bungie ’s arsenal . defeat the raid unlocked a make new , 12 - player — the first of its kind in Destiny account — fight that anyone who ’d finished The Final Shape ’s report up to this point could enter in , that saw players and the allies they ’d work up up across Destiny ’s chronicle thus far derive together to defeat the Witness once and for all . And it was great ! It was the big damn hero sandwich moment Final Shape ’s campaign had lacked ; it was fill up with huge fights and the form of amounts of enemies , musician , and allies alike the secret plan had never tried to bone into one distance before ; it was challenging but not frustratingly gruelling . And it was an end ! An actual end ! There was cutscenes and striking catharsis and everything .
But as my Warlock and I both sat , contemplating everything they ’d been through in the years since 2014 — gazing out at the Traveler , the giant star , superpower - give space globe that has fundamentally been the symbolization of Destiny for that decade — it was cleared whatever was next for the biz after this chapter had eventually closed was going to have to chart a unmanageable path . fate 2 is a living game , it does n’t just close off because we bunk up this one crowing terror , it keeps tick on , even after this moment of great release . As for what comes next ? Today Bungie begin to vacate the lid .
Screenshot: Bungie/Gizmodo
In a brief young video recording loose this morning , the developer laid out its plans for the next twelvemonth of content in Destiny 2 : three new “ installment ” that will twine out across the class that each focus on one of Destiny ’s classic antipathetic factions still lingering in the backwash of the Witness ’ frustration . “ Echo ” will sharpen on the Vex , “ Revenant ” the Fallen , and “ Heresy ” the Hive , examining the ways our relationships with those factions have exchange in the last 10 twelvemonth . In some cases , we ’ve developed coalition with element of those factions , turn foes into the friends — frenemies , in the caseful of the Hive , in the form of the tricksy goddess Savathun . In others , it involves revisiting locations Destiny has long controversially “ vaulted”—removed from player access in an attempt to keep the sizing and scope of the plot down — and returning to them with new visible light and new design sensitiveness learned over those same years . Beyond that ? Whatever ’s really next is still kept close to Bungie ’s chest of drawers , beyond a unfixed minx for something squall “ Codename Frontiers , ” which suggest find new horizon to research beyond the solar system Destiny has largely been confined in up to this detail .
It ’s a meet idea for this fugacious period Destiny finds itself in right now , terminate one climactic saga and sowing the seeds for whatever ’s next . It ’s uncommon to see a secret plan outside of this form of living format actually cope with what that transformation imply for its character and yourself as a participant — it ’s something one of my other not bad MMO love , Final Fantasy XIV , has played withas it goes from Endwalker , the enlargement touted much like The Final Shape was as the end of a storya decade in the making , and now onto Dawntrail , the at hand start of a new saga . To have Destiny social structure itself around revisiting junto , home , and mechanically skillful ideas for the way the game is actually played as this living world , and seeing just how far it ’s come in this moment , palpate like both a great endcap to what ’s been experienced and a fittingly Destiny idea : to always iterate , re - search , and redevelop as it ’s adapted and survived a tenner of challenges .
If The Final Shape represents the apex of what Destiny 2 has been capable of so far , go away back to these elements with new light — metaphorically and narratively talk , with the licking of the Witness no longer mist our heroes and their time to come — is one filled with potential . One that will perhaps keep me playing , in spite of myself , for another 10 or more .
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