Destiny 2 Forsaken

Destiny 2: Forsaken Review

Developers: Bungie
Publishers: Activision
Genres: First-Person Shooter, MMO, RPG, Adventure
Platforms: PS4, Xbox One, PC
Release date:
- Base game: September 6th 2017
- Expansions:
  - Curse of Osiris: December 5th 2017
  - Warmind: May 8th 2018
  - Forsaken: September 4th 2018
Playtime:
- Over 180 hours total
- Over 30 hours of Forsaken
Reviewed on a regular PS4
Note 1: This review is written in the perspective of a solo player, that is, content that requires the player to go outside of the game to form a team like the Nightfall or even the Raid are not contemplated in this review
Note 2: This review is a review of the present state of the game, regarding the contents that were introduced with the latest paid expansion, Destiny 2: Forsaken. Not to be mixed with the free update that released days before this paid expansion
Note 3: the game still contains loot boxes and its contents are largely the same as they were back when I reviewed Warmind.

Destiny 2: Forsaken is, by a long shot, the best expansion the franchise has seen to date, surpassing even the excellent Destiny: The Taken King expansion. Just like Taken King revitalized and brought back to life the original Destiny, Forsaken does the exact same thing for the sequel.

After the terrible Curse of Osiris first expansion, and the reasonable Warmind expansion, Bungie finally nails the concept of expansion. Even if Warmind introduced plenty of good stuff, namely exotics, good questlines and the new destination, Mars, was fairly good, Curse of Osiris was a complete disgrace, specially given that it came at a time when the base game was full of problems and Curse of Osiris only worsened the situation by enraging the player-base further.

First and foremost, Forsaken tells a story that, not only is it excellently portrayed and developed fully in the present, it also foreshadows quite a lot about what’s to come for us guardians. Forsaken tells a story of revenge, as we make our way through the Tangled Shore, the first new destination, to kill Uldren Sov, prince of the Reef, and his barons. But who are we avenging? Well… Cayde-6. He is killed in the middle of a prison break in the Reef when we go there along with him to help Petra Venj stop the prison break. Unfortunately, things go sour and we don’t make it in time to save Cayde. Thus, we go to the Tangled Shore, the first destination we travel to in the Reef, to hunt Uldren’s eight barons and, ultimately, avenge Cayde. These barons are a part of the new race of enemies introduced. Just like the Splicers in Destiny 1, the Scorn are modified Fallen. Surprisingly, these feel quite distinct in both appearance and gameplay, just like the Taken when they were first introduced. With all their aggressiveness, completely new appearances and brand-new fighting capabilities you’d never guess these enemies were once Fallen.

The story itself takes place completely in the Tangled Shore, as you play through the seven-ish hour long campaign. During that time, you meet a new NPC, the Spider, the “owner” of the Tangled Shore who helps you fight against the Scorn that infested his land and go after the barons so that you can have your revenge against Uldren at the end. This second part is the core of the campaign, as each baron provides a completely different fight: one of them you have to chase down a cavern full of explosives, another you end up in a sniping fight of sorts, etc. I quite liked how Bungie tackled these battles, one of the stand-out reasons for why this story was so successful. Of course, the cutscenes also played a huge role: not only were they used to introduce each baron so they weren’t just glorified enemies with a cool encounter, but also helped shape Uldren Sov as an antagonist.

After finishing the campaign, a second story of sorts starts. Personally, I’d divide these two as the first being the proper campaign for the expansion, while the second story is more about the endgame content, specifically, developing further the plot points of the campaign and building up the story for the raid. For this to be even more effective, this second story takes place in the Dreaming City, the second destination of the expansion, also in the Reef, that is an “evolving endgame destination” of sorts. Even for me that started playing this expansion ten days after it released, so far I’ve already seen some tangible evolutions: after the world’s first clear of the raid, the City got partly consumed by Taken and after the latest weekly reset the Taken blight spread further. This is an incredible addition for an MMO-ish game like Destiny, making the world feel truly alive, where the players’ actions have consequences in the world they play in.

Now to step back and discuss the new destinations: the Tangled Shore and the Dreaming City. I quite liked playing through the Tangled Shore, that much is certain. It had most of the enemy races available: Cabal, Fallen, Hive and, of course, the brand-new Scorn and the environment itself was quite good. It brought back some of that natural curiosity to explore the environment I missed from the puzzle-filled Dreadnaught and the original Earth location from Destiny 1 and, while leveling up, I always had something coming for me, be it a high-value enemy that dropped some loot to raise my Power level, a new public event or just finding chests that possibly dropped a new piece of useful of gear. Unfortunately, now that I’m past the 500 Power level soft cap, I don’t really see a reason to go back. Every time I get new gear it’s an instant dismantle, so it’s clear I should just move on to the Dreaming City, probably the most beautiful and enchanting destination to date. From the mysterious aura the landscape exudes to the evolving corruption of the environment by the Taken, it is an ever-evolving (at least for the time being) landscape filled with things to explore. It felt interesting to just run around looking for stuff and naturally coming across content. Plus, because I am still kind of underleveled for some parts of this place, coming across enemies that even the HUD has to warn me about but I still manage to come out of the encounter victorious at least made up for some good moments.

Now that the story and destinations are out of the way, we can move on to the actual activities of the game or, in other words, what you’ll be doing in the game after Uldren Sov falls. The new strikes are legitimately some of, if not the best strikes available in Destiny 2 to date. These new strikes aren’t just shoot everything in sight or even just story missions turned into strikes (looking at you, Year 1 expansions), no. These are actually what strikes should always be: small, self-contained stories that take you through a set of challenges with some neat gimmicks, while learning about the characters involved in said stories, with a boss waiting at the end to wrap up the experience. Then there’s the stuff you can do in the Dreaming City, aside from the obvious option, the raid. The Dreaming City is the ultimate destination for the current Destiny 2, thus, it contains some of the best rewards available but, on the other hand, it also contains some of the hardest enemies. In terms of actual content, there are the usual regional chests and lost sectors, but the City also adds some puzzles and a couple of exclusive public events. However, its most attractive content is the Blind Well, the latest big public event-ish activity where players in the same instance can come together to fight off waves of enemies, kill a special boss at the end and get some sweet loot. However, the keyword here is “instance”. Of course, you can bring your own fireteam so there will always be at least three people participating in the event but, from my solo experience, only once did I manage to get other people to be on the same instance of the game, therefore only once have I managed to actually experience this activity. It was a lot of fun, it’s that type of activity where you just see Hammers of Sol, Nova Bombs, Golden Guns and whatnot flying around and the power fantasy of having a handful of guardians beating the crap out of enemies kicks in.

Of course, we can’t mention activities without talking about the excellent brand-new addition to the game: Gambit. This a best of three PvE-PvP 4v4 hybrid where PvP can happen in the middle of a PvE activity. The premise is quite simple: kill waves of enemies, collect the motes they drop and bank them to score points for your team. But here’s the first twist: when you bank motes, you’ll send a strong PvE enemy to the opposing team, with the enemy’s strength being dependent on the number of motes you banked. So, banking not only secures your own team points but at the same time hinders your opponents’ progress. The second twist is that one player, at the select time, can teleport to the opponent’s map for thirty seconds and that’s where the PvP aspect comes in: while the opposing team is worried killing their share of enemies you or a teammate come out of nowhere to join the fight against them. Of course, the same can happen to you, but it creates a really fun dynamic that I can’t get enough of. The last piece of the puzzle is the Primeval, a really strong enemy that appears when a team gets to 75 points. You kill the Primeval, you win the round. Here, that’s the most dangerous moment for PvP because dying heals the Primeval but on the other hand killing the invader heals the opponent’s Primeval. Overall, Gambit is an excellent game mode that is mainly focused around PvE, my cup of tea, but the addition of PvP forces the team to work together so it can take care of the invader without too many losses.

There’s still the obvious elephant in the room I should address before getting to the end of this review: the actual gameplay. In all honesty, right now the gameplay is at its peak. Shooting is at its most satisfying, the Supers recharge rate is on point so you can use them at free will without worrying too much and the new weapon slot distribution that was introduced in the free update for all players added a new dynamic to the game. Once again, you can equip shotguns and snipers in your special weapon slot but, now, you can even equip them in your kinetic weapon slot. Granted, you can’t use any sniper as your primary weapon, but some snipers and shotguns can now be used as kinetic weapons besides being used as heavy or special weapons. Weapon types like rocket launchers, grenade launchers and swords are still rightfully locked to the heavy weapon slot, making them truly feel like powerful weapons that you bring out to dispatch enemies quickly. Forsaken also introduced a brand-new weapon type, the compound bow. This is a kinetic or special weapon type and it’s truly fun to play with. It’s a super precise weapon that thankfully makes plenty of use of the game’s aim assist to allow you to drop enemy after enemy with a single shot to the head. The first time I got a bow I played for one hour with it, completely forgetting I had two other weapons at the ready. From the sound effects to the simple, yet elegant design it’s definitely one my favorite weapon types in the game. Lastly, each class got three new Supers, that is, a total of nine Supers were added to the game. They do seem a lot of fun but, so far, I’ve only managed to get one for my Hunter. At least the one I got allows me to move around the map super-fast (get it?) while cutting all enemies in my way with two small blades.

Before the conclusion, there’s still something I should address. Just as I’ve disclaimed at the top of the review, this is a review from the perspective of a solo player, therefore activities like the Nightfall or the Raid are out of my scope. It’s not that the rewards aren’t enticing, in fact, they are apparently quite fundamental to raise your Power level fast, as they should be in all honestly, since we are talking about the true endgame activities. Rather, I’m not including that portion of content because a) no matter how you look at it, this is still a game-as-a-service so even to be of enough Power level to participate in said content still takes quite the time investment and b) since I don’t have a clan to play with, I’m not keen into losing hours upon hours just to look for a team online, not to mention the rest of the time we’d spend in the said activities, namely the raid. In short, you could say I opted for making a review in the perspective of a solo player because it’s infinitely more enjoyable to me to play at my own pace and I simply don’t have the time to be grinding just to be able to step foot into these activities. I enjoyed quite a lot what I’ve played so far and, honestly, I’ve been completely hooked into the game, but the grind to raise the Power level is getting to me so it’s time I step back and come back to the game once in a while to kill some aliens or play a couple of Gambit matches.

To conclude this review, Destiny 2: Forsaken finally puts the sequel where it needs to be. Actually, I think this might be the breaking point where Destiny 2 finally goes beyond Destiny 1. At this point, I think looking back at the original game is a matter of looking back at a game that I played for hundreds of hours and still have tons of fond memories of but, now, there’s no need to look back and wish Destiny 2 is as good as the first game was. Finally, I can look at Destiny 2 and see it as a worthwhile reason to have left all my hard-worn gear behind. I just wish the game-as-a-service aspects weren’t so blatant, trying to make the game as addictive as possible.