{"id":71545,"date":"2019-10-07T03:13:23","date_gmt":"2019-10-07T10:13:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.taterboy.com\/blog\/2019\/10\/first-impressions-bungies-new-independence-starts-on-the-moon-with-destiny-2-shadowkeep\/"},"modified":"2019-10-07T03:13:23","modified_gmt":"2019-10-07T10:13:23","slug":"first-impressions-bungies-new-independence-starts-on-the-moon-with-destiny-2-shadowkeep","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taterboy.com\/blog\/2019\/10\/first-impressions-bungies-new-independence-starts-on-the-moon-with-destiny-2-shadowkeep\/","title":{"rendered":"First impressions: Bungie\u2019s new independence starts on the moon with \u2018Destiny 2: Shadowkeep\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Destiny 2<\/em>\u2019s new expansion, Shadowkeep<\/em>, is a surprisingly good pick for a Halloween game. It\u2019s still Destiny 2<\/em>, so you\u2019re still blowing away invading aliens by the half-dozen with giant guns to a blaring metal soundtrack, but the quieter moments are when it gets creepy.<\/p>\n

Shadowkeep <\/em>is set mostly underground, in the bizarre inhuman catacombs below the surface of Earth\u2019s ruined moon, as you explore in search of information and artifacts. You\u2019re surrounded by accusing ghosts and drifting ectoplasm, as you pursue a series of missions that require you to track down and kill the nightmare reincarnations of several of Destiny<\/em>\u2019s worst, deadest antagonists. Your one major ally in this is a blind woman who seems to be A) constantly weeping blood and B) tormented by the visible specters of her fallen friends.<\/p>\n

It takes a lot to create an atmosphere of slowly building dread when your player character is a six-foot undead killing machine armed with a rocket launcher, but in its solo content, Shadowkeep <\/em>actually manages to pull that off occasionally.<\/p>\n

Shadowkeep <\/em>is the fourth expansion for Destiny 2<\/em>, and the first to be published by the newly-independent Bungie. It launched on Oct. 1 on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Steam, alongside a new feature called New Light<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Thanks to New Light<\/em>, this is about as close to a pure jumping-on point for Destiny 2 <\/em>as you\u2019re ever going to get. The idea is to provide a brand-new player with a quick boost up the ranks, so you can go right to playing with your friends without having to slowly grind your way up from scratch. A New Light <\/em>character is placed into a 20-minute introductory scenario, then dropped off in friendly territory with enough weapons and gear to start on the newest challenges.<\/p>\n

It is kind of funny when you think about it, though. Shadowkeep<\/em>\u2019s story draws heavily on the continuity of the Destiny <\/em>series, particularly the events of the first game\u2019s Dark Below <\/em>expansion from 2014. It\u2019s odd to debut the newbie-friendly boost system alongside the lore-nerd bonanza that is Shadowkeep<\/em>. You can <\/em>go right from New Light <\/em>to Shadowkeep <\/em>if you want, but unless you did some reading beforehand, it feels a lot like you\u2019re starting a trilogy with the third book.<\/p>\n

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I can say that with some authority, because this week has effectively been my introduction to Destiny 2,\u00a0<\/em>and to the series as a whole. I\u2019d never gotten very far into either game before now, but I decided to give it a shot with New Light, <\/em>as Bungie\u2019s having an interesting year.<\/p>\n

Bungie, based in Bellevue, Wash., announced early this year<\/a> that it would take over publishing duties on Destiny 2 <\/em>from its former partner, Activision Blizzard. Five months later, in June, it laid down a brand-new development road map<\/a> for the game, including streamlining its content, rearranging its design priorities, and moving away from the multi-platform grab-bag of different versions that had characterized Destiny 2 <\/em>up to that point.<\/p>\n

Right now, you can download the base Destiny 2 <\/em>game for free and play it for as long as you like without a subscription. It also comes with content from the first two expansions, Curse of Osiris <\/em>and Gravemind<\/em>, baked in. Last year\u2019s expansion Forsaken <\/em>and Shadowkeep <\/em>are still paid content, however.<\/p>\n

Even without them, however, that\u2019s still quite a lot. When you get dropped off at the Tower following the New Light <\/em>scenario, as a brand-new Guardian, the entire world of Destiny 2 <\/em>is a nested procession of quest markers, vendors, currencies, destinations, and possibilities. You can embark on a New Light-<\/em>specific quest series that\u2019s designed to send you all over the solar system, touching base with major NPCs and getting a handle on everything that\u2019s available for you to do, or ignore it all in favor of randomly rocketing around on your own.<\/p>\n

As you accomplish things \u2013 shooting aliens, finding treasures, doing multiplayer content \u2013 you gradually level up your seasonal rank, which also unlocks more planetary destinations for a New Light<\/em> character. This is a situation in which it pays to be methodical, as it\u2019s easy to end up with several dozen quests, twice as many bounty missions, a dozen different currencies, and a crippling case of option paralysis.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

That isn\u2019t really a criticism, of course. Destiny 2 <\/em>is two years old and four expansions deep at this point. Like any other MMO, you\u2019re \u201csupposed\u201d to start off simply and gradually work your way up to the more complicated endgame. New Light <\/em>lets you jump straight to the last stage, where you\u2019ll end up overloaded unless you\u2019re careful. You\u2019ll do best to follow the New Light quest series and play through a couple of expansions\u2019 story content just to get your feet under you.<\/p>\n

That content being free, though, is hard to get over. The rumor late last year was that Activision, as Destiny 2<\/em>\u2019s publisher, was planning to take steps to make the game more profitable<\/a>, which was probably going to mean loot boxes<\/a>. Destiny 2, <\/em>as published by Bungie, feels a lot more consumer-driven than it did before; there\u2019s exactly one version of the game for every available platform (as opposed to before, when every edition of Destiny 2 <\/em>had a couple of platform-specific bells and whistles), you get a lot <\/em>of the game for free, there\u2019s a single unobtrusive cash shop in the game\u2019s central hub, and you don\u2019t need a subscription to play it. Destiny 2 <\/em>is easily one of the best deals in video games right now if you enjoy the central gameplay.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

That gameplay is \u2026 well, it\u2019s Bungie making a first-person shooter, with all that implies. When Bungie is firing on all cylinders \u2013 the level design, the soundtrack, the feel of your weapons, the challenge and amount of the enemies, the plot and dialogue that explains why you\u2019re fighting these guys to begin with \u2013 it\u2019s easily the best developer in the FPS space today. When everything goes right, there\u2019s a certain ineffable feel to Destiny 2<\/em>\u2019s combat, much as there was when you played the early Halo <\/em>games in co-op mode, that\u2019s well beyond its competitors. It just flows<\/em> well. The early Halo <\/em>games didn\u2019t reshape the first-person shooter genre by accident.<\/p>\n

Destiny 2<\/em> is a fairly naked treadmill, however. The game is a textbook \u201cshoot \u2018n\u2019 loot,\u201d where you engage in content for a chance to get better weapons and armor, which you use to take on more challenging levels, in order to get better weapons and armor. Along the way, you accumulate a golf bag full of various weapons, most of which are random drops, so you may end up using the kinds of guns that you dislike because they happen to be the highest-level guns you\u2019ve found so far. It\u2019s everything that\u2019s vaguely obnoxious about gearing up in World of Warcraft<\/em>, transposed into an admittedly entertaining first-person shooter.<\/p>\n

I also have to say that the plot of Destiny <\/em>has always struck me as strange. It\u2019s all very overwrought and oddly generic, full of conspicuously neutral terms like the Light, the Darkness, the Traveler, the Collapse, and the Tower. It just about manages to pull it all off regardless, thanks to a hearty scoop of self-depreciation, but there\u2019s a lot about the storyline of Destiny <\/em>that sounds like somebody had to improvise the original plot bible in fifteen minutes before a meeting.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

A week wasn\u2019t enough to really evaluate it, though; these are more of a set of early impressions than an actual review. Destiny 2 <\/em>is a sprawling, near-infinite game, with enough repeatable missions, player-vs-player maps, and pure content to keep anyone occupied for a long time to come. It\u2019s a game that\u2019s designed to be a lifestyle choice, with weekly updates<\/a> and a robust community. For right now, though, it\u2019s easily the best free game on the market, and Shadowkeep <\/em>is an intense, creepy shooter with a lot of atmosphere and challenge.<\/p>\n

It is going to be interesting to see how it develops. Bungie\u2019s made a surprisingly large gamble here, in that Destiny 2 <\/em>isn\u2019t as heavily monetized as you\u2019d expect. Without subscription fees or a cost for entry, Destiny 2 <\/em>is relying upon a handful of in-game purchases, the strength of Forsaken <\/em>and Shadowkeep<\/em>, and the goodwill of its players to remain in the black. I\u2019d imagine there are a lot of people watching intently to see if this blows up in Bungie\u2019s face, and if it doesn\u2019t, it could mark a sea change for how mainstream game publishers make, market, and profit from their games.<\/p>\n

Bungie provided a code for the Digital Deluxe version of Destiny 2 for the purpose of this article.
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Destiny 2\u2019s new expansion, Shadowkeep, is a surprisingly good pick for a Halloween game. It\u2019s still Destiny 2, so you\u2019re still blowing away invading aliens by the half-dozen with giant guns to a blaring metal soundtrack, but the quieter moments are when it gets creepy. Shadowkeep is set mostly underground, in the bizarre inhuman catacombs… Read the full article…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-71545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-info"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t