You know what I love? Unique science fiction.
You know what I hate? Wasted potential.
So let's talk about Destiny.
I've been playing Destiny since it first released, and I mean day one, I even purchased the special edition PS4 bundle, so excited was I for the title, and I've had a love/hate relationship with the game since it launched.
I love the way the game feels to play; as a Bungie game, it's almost a given that the act of actually playing the game feels great, especially with friends. The controls are tight, the character abilities are fun to use, and the various guns all feel great to wield. I love the characters (once they were actually given room to be characters), the art, and the universe it all takes place in. Oh, and the soundtrack has always been fan-freaking-tastic.
On the other hand, I hate that the game always had so little to keep players occupied once the main story ended outside of repeating the same activities over and over again until a new expansion came out. I also hate that the bulk of the fascinating story was relegated to a website, instead of being shown in game.
After four years (damn, has it really been that long?) of the roller coaster ride that was playing through all of Destiny 1 and the first year of Destiny 2, I had finally convinced myself that I wasn't going to be purchasing the latest Destiny expansion, Forsaken. I promised myself that no matter how good the trailers looked, no matter how fun all the new gear seemed, no matter how interesting the story, that I would not allow myself to get pulled into Destiny's hype cycle again, especially after the 4 year low point that was Destiny 2: Curse of Osiris (an abysmal follow up to the promising launch of Destiny 2).
Then, I got it anyway.
Man, am I ever glad I bought this one, too. I'm not sure I can properly describe the excitement I feel watching a troubled property that I love finally start realizing its own potential, but I can tell you that it's an absolute blast to participate in. So how exactly did Destiny get its groove back? What's the secret formula that makes Forsaken so much better than everything that's come before? I think the answer is pretty simple; Effort.
Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not here to say that Bungie is a bad studio, or that Destiny has ever been a bad game. However, after playing this game for 4 years, seeing all of the little things that have gone wrong, all the poor decisions that have been made, it's hard to come to any other conclusion; the studio, up until recently, just wasn't doing all that it could to realize this games potential, and at times it took incredibly lazy routes with its content. In fact, let's take a second to lay out some of those mistakes, so you understand where I'm coming from:
- Not having the bulk of your story in your game.
- Not doing anything with your fantastic lore.
- Significantly lacking end game content.
- Recycling story missions as end game content.
- Removing celebrated quality of life improvements from Destiny 1 in Destiny 2 for no particular reason???
- Classes and weapons feeling significantly weaker at the launch of Destiny 2 to manufacture a sense of challenge.
- The Eververse, and the disgusting amount of money-grubbing in Curse of Osiris
- I will never forget this Activision, I know this was you.
- Seriously, what were you guys thinking? That this game somehow needed to garner more ill will by gating off content behind paywalls and psychologically pummeling your loyal players for more money?
- Good lord Activision, you bunch of absolute hacks.
Forsaken changed all of that (mostly). With this expansion, Bungie has improved on more than just the games playable content. Massive amounts of back and side stories have been added into the game for us to peruse at our leisure, and it's all fantastic (I mean, Destiny's lore was always some of the most interesting in modern gaming, but having it actually be available in game is a huge step forward). End-game content is plentiful, with daily and weekly challenges, week-long events, new PVP modes and maps, and an entire new end-game zone that is full of secrets, post-campaign missions, and a story that evolves as we play more of the game (it's also the most visually stunning location in a game full of visually stunning locations). Players are given access to a plethora of new abilities, weapons, and armor, and entire game play systems have been overhauled to allow more freedom. Most important of all, however, Bungie chose to kill a fan-favorite character.
Now, on its face, this may seem like a regular occurrence; fans like a character, so a studio decides to create a story driven by that characters loss and how we react to it. But the death of Cayde-6 is more than that.
Some backstory: After the first year of Destiny, Bungie realized that, story-wise, the game was still lacking something. That something was characters, personality, and emotional substance, and the release of The Taken King, our first major expansion to the game, was the perfect opportunity to change this. Enter Cayde-6, one of the three leaders of the Vanguard, a glorified quest-giver, voiced by the legendary Nathan Fillion, and currently doing nothing at all of importance. While Bungie did its best to start fleshing out its expanding cast of characters in its second year, Cayde was the one to get the most development, who had the largest presence in the story, and was the character fans grew to love the most, with his roguish persona and general goofiness. His personality would go on to carry large portions of The Taken Kings story, as well as sections of Destiny 2, because he was the most interesting character by default.
By killing off the character whose personality was, let's face it, a crutch for much of the game's story up to this point, the studio is making a promise that the content to come is going to be completely new territory, that we should be prepared for anything, that new characters will be in the spotlight, and, if the experience of Forsaken up to this point is anything to go off of, it'll be emotionally gripping, fantastically inventive, and worth sticking around for.
I should probably wrap this up before it starts to become an in-depth review of...well, all of Destiny up until this point, as I'm sure you don't want to read a 30 minute article. Suffice it to say, Forsaken, while not a perfect expansion, IS a perfect example of what happens when the studio behind a game truly takes fan feedback to heart (Destiny has one passionate fan base), and puts serious effort into getting more out of its story.
Forsaken goes a long way towards helping one of of the most promising games of this decade start to realize its potential as one of the best MMO games on the market, and for this reason I give it a well deserved, and cautiously optimistic, 4.5 out of 5. Well done, Bungie, and please, keep it up.
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