Everyone knows by now how problematic the year ofLightfallhas been forDestiny 2and Bungie at large.The DLC itself, for sure, was an issue, butthe final season of the yearwas disappointing and amounting number of real-world concernsdidn’t stop coming. Until now, that is.
I’m something of aDestinyexpatriate, you see. For the years betweenForsakenandLightfall, Bungie’s seminal franchise wasthego-to game for me, from the lore books to day one raiding, I was all over everything related toDestinyat large. It wasn’t perfect much of the time, it goes without saying, but releases such asWitch Queenand a solid raiding/endgame friend group meant there was always,alwayssomething good for us to engage with. And, so we did. Until we stopped.
Now, I’m not saying thatthe questionable quality ofLightfalland its subsequent seasonal offeringswas what put many of us off, necessarily, but it sure didn’t help. My playgroup simply fell off the live-service wagon thatDestiny‘s been dragging behind it forever now, and getting back onto it wasn’t an option. Around the time of this taking place, theDestinycommunity was up in arms over a variety of things:
And that’s a very non-exhaustive list of issues that cropped up forDestiny 2on top of all theother, more serious problemsthat it had been dragging along from the months prior. This is relevant because as I fell off the dailyDestinygrind, so too did I stop checking in with the community, which became more and more unhappy with the state of the game asBungie encountered problemsall of its own.The subsequent layoffsmade things worse still, leading to an overall air of unease that became associated withDestiny 2.
The stage is set for Destiny 2: The Final Shape
It was strange and impressive in equal parts, then, when I checked back in withDestiny 2‘s biggest subreddit following the release ofInto the Light. This free DLC release marked a major push onward, as far as Bungie’s attempts to turn things back around go. And now, withInto the Lightin tow, the actual events of the game and its balancing are the main topics once again, betraying a sense of normalcy. Something that you wouldn’t necessarily expect, considering what Bungie andDestiny 2have been going through sinceLightfallcame out.
Just months ago, it wasvirtually unthinkable that Bungie would successfully turn things around forDestiny 2in such short order. Yet, here we are.
To be perfectly fair, this doesn’t mean thatThe Final Shapewill be selling gangbusters. I’d be hard-pressed to expect this DLC to perform as well asLightfalldid, though I’m almost positive it’ll be a fair bit better in the end. That’s becauseLightfallenjoyed the windfall delivered by the amazingWitch QueenDLC, whileThe Final Shapeis bound to rile up negative attention thanks toLigthfall‘s failures.
Yet, the sense of excited normalcy is pervasive on ther/destinythegame subreddit. The most popular topics as of mid-May discussgame balancing,excellent Pantheon combat strategies,The Final Shapecontent, andin-game cats. This is in no particular order, mind: just to give you a general sense of how things have settled down, now that we’reless than a monthaway from what is, in effect, the most importantDestiny2DLC we’ve had yet.
Can Bungie deliver, once again?
Destiny 2: The Final Shapeis due to release on June 4, and the simple fact of the matter is thatDestinyfans do have a lot to be excited about. The sheer presence ofthe Prismatic subclass, for one, is unprecedented on its own, to the point that it’s easy to forget what else we’re getting with the DLC. A whole newDarkness faction? A reworkedpower system? Theun-sunsetting of itemsthat were out of the rotation sinceBeyond Light?
Honestly, it’s like someone’s taken the generalized community content wishlist forDestiny 2and went ham on it. This stuff is so interesting that it’s completely overshadowedBungie’s propensity to sunset a fair chunk ofInto the LightonceFinal Shapecomes out, but that’s a story for some other day.
Back to the topic at hand, it was virtually unthinkable just months ago that theDestinycommunity would be back to its usual self ahead ofThe Final Shape. Against all odds, though, Bungie succeeded in balancing things out, and ifThe Final Shapedelivers out of the gate, it may well end up being just the type of thing this franchise needs to maintain its momentum.
All of this is to say that, as it currently stands, things are looking nice and calm in theDestinycorner of the world. This isn’t a given that everything will be hunky-dory onceThe Final Shapecomes out, naturally, but it does give us an idea that the community is ready for Bungie to deliver something that’s in line with the franchise’s pedigree.
It’s still entirely possible that this extremely hyped-up DLC will flunk. Or, as was the case withLightfall, that it’ll do well early on, only to fall apart under further scrutiny and a continuously unremarkable post-DLC content schedule. Remember: we’ve got absolutely no idea howThe Final Shape‘s ‘Episodes’ will function.
Bungie is making a deliberate delineation between Episodes and Seasons as they were up until now, and there ispotentiallya fair bit less content planned for 2024 and beyond. Remember: we’re only gettingthreeEpisodes during the year ofThe Final Shape, compared to theLightfall‘s four Seasons. The Episodes’ act-based structure and content formatting may pan out, but we just don’t have enough information to go on.
So Bungie is about to make a huge gamble withThe Final Shape. The team’s done well over the past couple of months, which resulted in possibly the best pre-DLC situation they could’ve wished for. The community is extremely receptive as it now stands, too, and the stage is set. As for what comes next… we’ve got just a few short weeks to go before we find out.
