![]() ![]() On a purely functional level, and for many players, this should all be enough, right? The gameplay itself remains exciting, the encounters mostly very well designed, though unfortunately not as tense and exhilarating as some of what we saw in the previous expansion, The Witch Queen. And the cinematic that introduces’ Lightfall’s story does an admirable job of catching us up on the relevant story beats leading up to the current moment. After playing through the tutorial missions introduced back in the New Light update, it’s possible to jump directly into the Lightfall campaign. That Calus is brought low in Lightfall, and turned into a pawn of the Witness, is made richer partially because we once got to see him at his height.īut what about new players with only a passing knowledge of Destiny 2’s extensive lore and backstory? Getting into the game itself is relatively straightforward. I still remember struggling through those late-night sessions, attempting to beat it with my original, now defunct, clan: bashing our heads against the raid’s seemingly impossible puzzles, Calus’ growling reptilian laughter echoing through our sleep-deprived skulls. A version of Calus hosted Destiny 2’s very first raid. Though Neomuna is new, the villain that threatens it, the Cabal ex-emperor Calus, is quite old. New life is breathed into old Strikes and Gambit sessions, which can now be approached from a new airborne perspective, unburdened by gravity or - judging by how easy it is to fling yourself off a ledge - common sense. It also, helpfully, makes old content feel refreshing again, particularly for players who’ve gone through it all before ad nauseam. Strand doesn’t reinvent as much as it reconfigures how the game used to function. In Strand’s extreme mobility and its reuse of Destiny’s familiar action of grabbing and dunking orbs, you can see the shapes and behaviors of previous mechanics. With Strand, players can grapple through the air and, among other things, hook onto enemies and slam into them with a satisfying explosion. Aside from an armory of new weapons with a wide variety of perks (as is the norm in any of Bungie’s expansions), the campaign also grants players a new super ability called Strand. The mechanical act of playing Lightfall similarly feels like a combination of the old and the new. While still mostly a mystery, we have now seen the Traveler change things, and become changed itself in turn. What was once an inscrutable, passive entity now has become an active participant in the course of events. Lightfall begins to answer the question of “What is The Traveler’s deal, anyway?” At the campaign’s outset, it leaps dramatically into action - as much as a moon-sized sphere possibly can - launching itself into Earth’s orbit and challenging its old enemy, the Witness. The expansion’s story reaches all the way back to the very first moments of the original Destiny, back when we all looked up in wonder at that giant white ball called the Traveler hovering Damocles-like over humanity’s Last City. Lightfall’s gameplay itself remains exciting, though unfortunately not as tense and exhilarating as some of what we saw in The Witch Queen ![]() Destiny 2 continuously celebrates its history even as it continues to erase it elsewhere. Deep in its menus are pages dedicated to “Moments of Triumph” and “Seals” commemorating all you’ve achieved in the six years since the game’s original release. After all, it’s always been a game with one foot stuck in the past. In many ways, Destiny 2 is made for those of us who might notice the evidence of this history, who might even spend two paragraphs of a Lightfall review talking about a totally separate Bungie title. While Destiny 2 today may be mostly unrecognizable in its polish and mechanical complexity compared to Bungie’s 2001 megahit, if you know where to look, it’s easy to see in the level design, the monsters, and the guns (homages of which made their way into Destiny 2’s 30th Anniversary update), you can see the layers and layers of history. Leaving aside Bungie’s earlier games, Lightfall has arrived at the tail end of a 20-year span that Halo originated. In its two-tiered layout, its gaggle of room-filling purple ships and its wall-length energy shields leading out to space, it resembled nothing so much as the Covenant hangars Master Chief invaded in one of Bungie’s earliest games: Halo: Combat Evolved.ĭeliberate or not, this visual double-take reminds me that Destiny 2 is a game in conversation with a long history. During the first mission of Bungie’s newest Destiny 2 expansion, Lightfall, having hijacked an enemy spaceship and set it to self-destruct, I came across a familiar-looking hangar bay on my way out.
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