Destiny 2’s latest expansion, The Final Shape, is finally closing the chapter on its Light vs. Dark saga that has been stewing for nearly 10 years. Destiny’s story of The Traveler and the Guardians’ fight against the Darkness first began in September of 2014, and although the seemingly eternal war has gone through several iterations (and much sidetracking) we are – at last – getting the opportunity to finish it once and for all.
Even so, this isn’t an end to future content coming to Destiny 2 that many feared. Bungie has made it clear that they still have plenty of stories to tell with our Guardians, and just because this chapter is closed doesn’t mean that a new one won’t begin. Some story spoilers may follow in this Review-in-Progress, so reader beware! If you’re wanting to see the culmination of this decade-long story for yourself, I would urge you to play through the expansion yourself first.
But you might be wondering, “Is the story even good? Is it worth my hard-earned money to buy and play through?” To address this first: Yes. The story is great. Though not my personal favorite (The Taken King will forever hold a special place in my mind), it’s definitely up there – while not tied for first place, it could easily tie for second.
Admittedly, the launch day of The Final Shape was absolutely horrendous. I kept encountering error messages to the point where I couldn’t even log in past the title screen for the first seven hours. When I eventually managed to get past the character select screen, I still kept receiving error messages and could not start the first mission. Eventually, I had to call it quits that night. But by the morning, all of these issues were seemingly resolved – at least for me – and I haven’t experienced an error message or disconnect since then.
An Excellent Campaign
If you’ve been hiding under a space-rock for the past few years and either haven’t played Destiny 2 recently, or haven’t even played since Destiny 1, there are a lot of elements that might confuse you. Where is Cayde-6? Why are the Cabal and the Eliksni hanging out in the Tower? Who is this Crow guy, and why does he look just like Uldren Sov?
For these players, I probably wouldn’t recommend playing through The Final Shape just yet – you’ve got a lot to catch up on first. But if you (like me) dipped back into Destiny 2 (nearly) every time there was a new content drop – such as a new expansion – then you’ll at least be knowledgeable enough to appreciate the ending.
I finished the campaign on Saturday, following the Raid “Salvation’s Edge” that launched the day before, and got to experience the full story and the final ending against this fight against the Darkness and The Witness. Although I haven’t beaten the Raid yet myself (I’m still getting my Light level up high enough before going in), thankfully you don’t need to in order to play the final story mission. That said, the Raid itself bridges the gap between when you first fight against The Witness and injure him, to when you finally end him in the last story mission. So I still fully intend to experience this for myself.
To recap the story leading up to The Final Shape, The Witness has infiltrated The Traveler and the whole universe is at risk of losing The Traveler’s Light for good. This is the big-baddie controlling the Darkness that Guardians have been fighting for years, and he’s moments away from winning the war. To fight back, the Guardians must enter The Traveler itself and push back The Witness before he can completely take control.
The first new story mission felt like a trippy jaunt through an M.C. Escher-like dreamscape as I made my way inside The Traveler. I loved the new destination The Pale Heart, which is the first time that Bungie has made a “linear” destination. Instead of an open area, or a circular design like Earth’s EDZ, The Pale Heart is more of a straight line. As you progress the story, each mission takes you a little further in; and each new location is like a twisted reimagining of past areas – such as the original Tower and areas in the Cosmodrome.
But the best part of this story is Nathan Fillion reprising his role as Cayde-6. That’s right, Cayde (and his banter) is back and he fills a void that has been missing in Destiny ever since the Forsaken expansion took him away from us six years ago. Although we’ve seen other characters introduced that tried to take his place (such as Nimbus in Lightfall), they never quite hit the same way that Cayde did. The Final Shape was a perfect medium for Bungie to bring back this much-beloved character and provide players with a better sense of closure.
New Content in The Final Shape
Besides the new destination and other obvious inclusions – like new exotics, new legendaries, and a new Raid – there’s also a new progression system called ‘Pathfinder’. This is supposed to be a replacement for bounties, patrols, and weekly vendor activities – although it doesn’t encompass everything yet, such as Gunsmith bounties. For now, there are only two available Pathfinders: one for The Pale Heart, and one for core activities like the Crucible, Gambit, and Vanguard missions.
Each Pathfinder has 20 nodes with different objectives, seemingly randomized for each Guardian, that starts off with six nodes and branches down into a single point. This last point is the reward for completing it, where you can earn a ton of experience, glimmer, and powerful gear, and you can reset it for 30,000 glimmer for additional rewards – albeit with diminishing returns.
It’s a fresh take on a pursuit system that I hope eventually covers all of the vendors, and it’s definitely a quality-of-life feature for not having to visit each individual person in order to turn-in or pickup bounties. Nevertheless, you will still have to visit them to redeem the engrams you earn in each respective activity.
The New Kaleidoscope Subclass
I know it’s called ‘Prismatic’ but I like my name better. The new Kaleidoscope subclass in The Final Shape lets you combine different powers from all of the other subclasses in order to make a more customized and personalized playstyle (just like how a kaleidoscope combines different shapes and colors to create unique designs). Although the options are pretty limited when you first unlock the subclass, at least it’s available immediately instead of only at specific points in the story until after the campaign (looking at you Stasis and Strand).
As you push the campaign, more and more abilities become available to slot into your loadout. This ultimately felt like it promoted build experimentation, and I found it more engaging than ever to customize my prismatic abilities in order to compliment my weapon loadout so that I could consistently dish both Light and Dark energies in order to trigger the new ‘Transcendence’ mode.
Besides the new Prismatic subclass, I also very much enjoyed the Titan’s new Void super, Twilight Arsenal. This new super hurls three Void-infused greataxes for big damage, and leaves these axes where they’re thrown for yourself (or other Guardians) to pick up and use. It’s become my new favorite Titan super. Unless I’m required to play a specific loadout for activities (like Raids), then the Twilight Arsenal is going to be my mainstay super from now on. Unfortunately, I haven’t played with either the Hunter’s or the Warlock’s new supers since I’ve been pushing mainly on my Titan, but I plan to unlock them next now that I’ve finished the campaign.
The Path Ahead
Bungie just recently announced their plans for the next three Episodes (read: seasons) following the launch of The Final Shape. The first Episode, ‘Echoes’, starts today and will run for 18 weeks. Echoes will focus on fighting the Vex on Nessus, while the next two Episodes – Revenant and Heresy – will feature the Fallen and Hive respectively.
Beyond this next year, Bungie has also announced that the content following these first three Episodes is codenamed ‘Frontiers’, but besides the name they haven’t shared any details as of yet. It does seem like Frontiers is planned for Destiny 2 though, so at least we still have a while to go before we might see a Destiny 3.
Stay tuned for our final review!
Before I feel that I can provide a numerical verdict to Destiny 2: The Final Shape, I’d like to first at least attempt the new Raid, Salvation’s Edge. Although I don’t anticipate being able to beat it just yet, my goal will be to survive until the last encounter. Additionally, I want to see what new missions and activities are going to open up for the first Episode, Echoes. This is the beginning of the post-campaign seasonal content that is slated to last us through the rest of the year.
Despite this, if you’ve managed to read this far into the review-in-progress – or if you’ve just scrolled down to the last paragraph to look for a score – I can at least offer this: Destiny 2: The Final Shape is a must-play for any Destiny fan and I highly recommend jumping back in even if you’ve lapsed in recent years. Depending on exactly how much you’ve missed though, I’d suggest at least looking up a Lore video first to get caught up.
Please look forward to our final review coming later this week.
