Destiny 2 – Shadowkeep

The Destiny 2: Shadowkeep holds a lot of firsts for Guardians. It was the first expansion Bungie self-published after its split from Activision, it is the first release for what is the current free-to-play base game, and it introduced several gameplay mechanics like finishers, Nightmare Hunts, and a reworked armour system. While things have certainly changed since the 2019 expansion first came into being, Shadowkeep is an expansion that deserves some attention, even if it is starting to show its age.

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Note from the Editor: As Destiny 2 is a live service game, we’ll be reviewing all of the expansions and what they mean to the overall game. Current reviewed expansions are found below:

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Shadowkeep sees the return of Eris Morn who hasn’t been seen since the original Destiny. The powerful witch has discovered that a mysterious Pyramid ship has managed to bury itself under the surface of Earth’s moon. Morn accidentally activates the ship which not only powers up the invading Hive forces but releases the ghosts of her old fireteam. This results in the ever-reliable Guardian being called in to perform a space exorcism across the lunar surface.

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At A Glance

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As soon I was given the instructions to explore the area where the pyramid was hidden, dubbed the Hellmouth, I knew this expansion would be a dark and creepy exploration of Destiny’s darker side, and boy, I wasn’t disappointed. During the campaign, I had to crawl through tight spaces, fight in almost darkness and experience some trippy cutscenes that centered around Eris’s battle with her dead teammates. To say more than this will venture into spoiler territory but I will say that plot-wise, Shadowkeep’s venture into Hell feels like one of the more engaging expansions to Destiny 2.

This in part is due to the enemies Bungie has thrown at me – The Hive. These scuttling critters, who also play a big part in The Witch Queen DLC, lend themselves to the lightless areas of the moon. Thanks to their proximity to the pyramid, these particular Hive have evolved into powerful Red Hive. The Alien-inspired baddies manage to attack in large numbers and can overwhelm battle arenas quickly, coupled with the lack of light, this left me walking around enclosed areas with nothing but the light from my gun keeping me safe. It was a blast having to play through the expansion with a fear of being jumped at any moment, the lengthy levels only added to the tension as the baddies slowly got stronger and more menacing.

The story properly introduces Nightmare Hunts, a public event that’s available to all players who decide to visit the Moon, even without having purchased Shadowkeep. The hunts revolve around trying to stop the Hive from activating an alter of power and summoning a powerful demon. The lengthy battles last around 20-30 minutes depending on the number of players online. Cutting through waves of enemies, in what is effectively a hoard mode, is fun enough but finishing each hunt will net something Destiny 2 is known for – loot.

Like every other expansion Bungie has put together, Shadowkeep has weapons, amour and vehicles in spades. Like a kid looking to smash as much pick ‘n’ mix in a bucket as possible, there are hundreds of guns, bows and swords to get your teeth into and each one has its uses. I particularly found the exclusive Shadowkeep story armour complimented my Titan build rather nicely, and after it was given a splash of green paint, has become my go-to look. 

While it was fun cutting through strong hoards of Hive beasts, and exploring what amounts to Bungie’s version of Hell, there are some issues with Shadowkeep. The main bone of contention comes with the majority of the missions being “Return to talk to Eris,” followed by “Attune at the table next to Eris.” When the plot is spread over 19 missions, these little back-and-forths quickly add up, and the situation isn’t made any better when part of the story is told during seasons that are no longer accessible in 2023. After clearing through the Hive, and slowly sorting out those ghastly premonitions, the story simply ended with nothing more than a pat on the back from Eris Morn. 

Shadowkeep was released at the same time Destiny 2 introduced the battle pass setup and Bungie wanted to ensure players remained committed to the MMO for the year. While the seasons have since been amended to only include additional stories that don’t impact the expansion, at the time this wasn’t the case. This left Guardians having to explore the consequences of Shadowkeep’s ending through lore books rather than having access to play catch up through gameplay. With so much content available, this could be seen as a good thing, skimming books is quicker than shooting through numerous missions, but is it as fun? The answer is always no, but I will say that where Destiny 2: Shadowkeep ends is at a sensible juncture, and if you were to move onto the Beyond Light campaign, the important gaps would be filled in for you.

Shadowkeep is already a relic of the past and while the new areas are quite lengthy, the story can be blasted through in a few hours thanks to the repetitive “Go to the table and then speak to Eris” schtick. Bungie’s foray into seasonal content does mean the year-long season arc, which is no longer accessible, leaves players to fill in the gaps by reading copious amounts of lore books. Shadowkeep is the black sheep of the Destiny 2 experience and while it doesn’t exactly enhance the Light vs Dark story, it is a nice break from the traditional gameplay and is worth exploring, even if you’re only in it for the gear.

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Destiny 2 – Lightfall

Destiny 2 – Armoury Collection

I’m back with another Destiny 2 DLC review and this time I’m taking on 2023’s newest bundle, The Armoury Collection. Rather than being a new addition like the Lightfall update, this package combines both the 30th Anniversary Pack and the Forsaken DLC, which was removed from the Legacy bundle in favour of The Witch Queen expansion.

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Note from the Editor: As Destiny 2 is a live service game, we’ll be reviewing all of the expansions and what they mean to the overall game. Current reviewed expansions are found below:

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At A Glance

Destiny 2: The Armoury Collection
Positives	+ Guns + Lots of guns + Oh and a new Raid
Negatives	– You’re mainly paying for guns – And access to a couple of trophies/achievements – But mainly, guns
Overall	No Score
Played On	PS5
Also Available On	PC, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One
Find out about our scoring policy here.

The Destiny 2: The Armoury Collection is a neat little package of two halves. I’ve decided to treat it as such and have split the review accordingly. To be clear, I would only suggest buying the Forsaken DLC and The 30th Anniversary Pack as part of The Amoury Collection to get the most value out of the content, but I understand everyone is different, so let’s have a look at what you get.

Forsaken DLC

I should be saying that the Forsaken story revolved around the Guardian’s seeking to avenge the death of a popular character at the hands of Prince Uldren Sov. I would then go on to say that Uldren, corrupted by the Darkness, was in search of his lost sister, Queen Mara Sov. Both names should be familiar to those who played the epic The Taken King expansion in the original Destiny. I could have then wrapped up by saying the expansion was one of the more popular releases that Destiny 2 has seen in years. The 2018 expansion detailed the heartache of the Guardians losing a key character in such a manner. Except this is irrelevant as Bungie removed the story from Destiny 2 early in 2022. New players will only get the briefest mention of these events as it’s all gone, much to my annoyance. These were some of the best missions within the shooter, full of charm, wit and charisma that balanced the seriousness of the war with lighthearted comedic moments.

Still, the Gambit mode that launched as part of the expansion didn’t meet with the same fate as the story mode. These PVP and PVE modes gave Guardians a break from the reality of war and it gave a real sense of how Bungie could evolve Destiny as a game. Players were no longer limited to nightfall missions but were finally able to fight in compact sandbox-style levels either together or against each other. Each of the modes is recognisable as typical multiplayer modes like deathmatch and capture-the-flag style, but Bungie manages to keep them fresh, entertaining and meaningful. Much like Nightfall Strikes, each of the modes found in Gambit rotates each week to keep things fresh and despite my reluctance to battle in competitive areas, I rather enjoy getting my arse handed to me regularly. A personal favourite is the 3v3 guardian mode with a capped weapon level, meaning players have to strategise to knock out the opposing team. With so few players on the map, it felt like battling in an abandoned theme park which gave a sense of tension throughout each round.

An exciting multiplayer mode might sound like the Forsaken DLC is good in theory, but when Bungie decided to confine Forsaken to the vault, the team carried Gambit over to the free-to-play base game. This means that buying the Forsaken expansion only unlocks a large number of exotic weapons and amour. This is handy for those looking to complete the game’s dastardly trophy list, but for me, that doesn’t scream value for money. This is why I’d suggest that to get the full experience, players should consider combining the expansion with The 30th Anniversary Pack to get the most value for money. 

The 30th Anniversary Pack

The pack is a celebration of the studio’s three decades of creating video games. It contains a handful of fan-favourite weapons for players to unlock as well as a new raid based on what Guardians experienced with the original Destiny. 

The Grasp of Avarice raid is a three-player co-op dungeon crawler set in the Cosmodrome. Taking inspiration from the old loot raids from the original game, players explore, puzzle solve, and take out powerful enemies to unlock a treasure trove of goodies and it is tough going. I particularly enjoyed the level of puzzle solving required, and while there were a few cheap tricks like booby-trapped doors and unexpected platforms falling from underneath me, the overall experience was a great change of pace from the usual run-and-gun style Destiny 2 is known for. 

Aside from the dungeon and the plethora of weapons and armour, there is very little to speak of and as such, the mileage you get with The 30th Anniversary Pack in Destiny 2 will vary. I am very much a creature of habit and have my specific loadouts so I found myself just throwing all the weapons in my archive rather than adopting them into my usual rotation and the dungeon, while nice is only one to come back to a handful of times.

Conclusion

Bungie has done the right thing by combining The 30 Anniversary Pack with what remains of the Forsaken expansion into one price for what is essentially a couple of dungeons and a plethora of weapons. While I’m sure some players will derive value for each bit of content (looking at you trophy hunters), I would only recommend buying either DLC as part of The Amoury Collection. It remains frustrating to see what was a strong story in Forsaken reduced to two cutscenes that don’t enhance the story in a meaningful way. If you are interested in picking up this bit of DLC, then please, get it when it’s on sale. 

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Destiny 2 – Beyond Light

The Destiny 2: Beyond Light expansion forms part of the Legacy Collection DLC that also includes the Forsaken and Shadowkeep expansions. While all three packs can be purchased separately, the collected DLC is the pack that we have based our recommendation on as it provides the best value and is regularly on sale.

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Note from the Editor: As Destiny 2 is a live service game, we’ll be reviewing all of the expansions and what they mean to the overall game. Current reviewed expansions are found below:

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At A Glance

Scores
Positives	+Meaty storyline and side quests that keeps giving +Stasis powers are fun to use +Tonnes of new weapons to try
Negatives	-Repeated missions -Boss fights are a let down -Limited to one area
Overall	Recommended
Price (When Reviewed)	£24.99* Part of the Legacy Collection DLC
Available On	PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PC

Destiny 2 – Beyond Light brings with it a whole new story line set on the frozen tundra that is Europa. As the war for the Traveller rumbles on throughout the solar system, Guardians are tasked with infiltrating the Golden Age Braytech facility to track down Eramis, the Kell of Darkness, a powerful enemy that seeks to utilise powerful abilities that have been designed to counteract the Light of the Guardians. 

Beyond Light features the six-limbed bugs known as the Fallen as the main enemy here, and throughout the lengthy 10 hours or so you’ll spend on the main campaign, they are certainly a race I wanted to dispatch quickly. The insect chattering annoyances only have a few variations, and as they skit and slide across the battlefield, they are not only hard to pin down, but like Tusken Raiders, they often return in larger numbers. Every firefight lasted a good few minutes and I was always in danger of being overwhelmed just by the sheer number of combatants against me. This did make every step of the campaign meaningful and I felt I was earning my reward at the end. 

That reward comes in the form of a new power class – Stasis. This is a new power that sits as a fourth component to the already established Void, Arc and Solar classes within the game, and it set the bar so high when the expansion originally released that the other areas had to be retooled. Stasis was supremely powerful and crucially, customisable when Beyond Light was unleashed in 2020. The ice barriers could be tweaked in such a way that player loadouts would be too overpowered – as an example, you could create a barrier that not only froze bad guys to the spot but were explosive, so all a player had to do was shoot the newly formed wall to cause massive destruction. Thankfully, with the 2022 release of The Witch Queen expansion similar customisations were brought in throughout the rest of the abilities meaning that it is a much more balanced powerup.

There are a couple of disappointments within Beyond Light. Missions are carried out entirely in one section of Europa so there is a lot of retreading the same ground. Bungie does mix this up to prevent it being completely boring but it would have been nice to have a bit more variation on the area. The other issue comes in the form of boss fights, as they also double up as a tutorial for the new Stasis archetype. Starting off like any other skirmish I would blast through mindless drones until Eramis would show her mandibles. At this point my Guardian would become enveloped by the new Stasis power and could fling his special powers at will. I felt limiting the powers solely to boss fights disjointed the experience somewhat. In games like Ocarina of Time, the whole dungeon is built around whatever Link’s new toy is, and he spends the time getting used to it before using the Big Key and fighting the evil champion. With Beyond Light, I was given a taste of something that I didn’t fully understand and wasn’t given the opportunity to use it properly until the story was put to bed. 

Granted this is only a minor sticking point and one that quickly rectifies itself once I embarked on the subsequent missions, of which there are many. Once the main story has reached its conclusion, a host of raid missions become available which unlock new and fancy exotic weapons, and further details Destiny’s rapidly expanding universe. Along with numerous bits of kit to find scattered throughout Europa, there is a lot to be getting on with after the lengthy campaign. Even after completing the bulk of Beyond Light, I am still coming across new things to do or elements I have missed, which is testament to just how much there is to do in the game, and for someone who loves value for money, coming across new missions months after I thought everything was done, brings a smile to my face. 

Destiny 2: Beyond Light is certainly a worthy expansion in the operatic space war. At this point it is given that there is a wealth of exotic weapons and armour to get to grips with, but the new Stasis powers are worth the investment alone. Throwing freezing walls at enemies adds a layer of defence that was sorely missing. These new powers change the tide of battle in such a way that just has to be experienced to be believed. With Guardians being able to harness darkness powers, this certainly muddies the waters in terms of where the story is likely to go with future expansions and lays a pretty strong groundwork for the battles yet to come.

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Destiny 2 – The Witch Queen

With Destiny 2’s The Witch Queen Expansion, Bungie have brought a massive overhaul to the world of Guardians. The story will be told over the course of the next year, but out of the box there are a number of game changes, improvements and an overarching story that ripples throughout the game’s lore. New weapons have been welcomed into the game, and along with the re-emergence of Mars as a playable map, the gameplay has been tweaked significantly over the last overhaul, though there are some caveats to this expansion which may irk long time players. 

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Note from the Editor: As Destiny 2 is a live service game, we’ll be reviewing all of the expansions and what they mean to the overall game. Current reviewed expansions are found below:

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At A Glance

Scores
Positives	+ Beefy expansion with large storyline + Fully customisable weapons + Hive Guardians are challenging
Negatives	– The new area is a little too small – Relies on sheer numbers of enemies – Enemy types are limited
Overall	Recommended
Price (When Reviewed)	£34.99

In Destiny 2 – The Witch Queen, Savathûn, one of the ancient Gods of the Hive who has been weaving her influence throughout the world since the original Destiny, is finally unveiled. She is sister to The Taken King, and now she’s ready to act out her plans for capturing humanity. Along with the emergence of her Throne World, The Witch Queen has brought her Lucent Hive army, who’ve somehow managed to manipulate The Light to power them up, allowing a brutal assault on our solar system. As the allied generals scrabble to form a plan of defence, it’s up to the Guardian to load up and investigate just what’s going on. 

Savathun’s arrival and her use of The Light brings a whole new layer of story to Destiny 2. For years it was accepted that The Light, the gift that was bestowed on humanity, was to be destroyed by the various alien forces. Once the expansion kicked off, it felt that The Witch Queen had finally brought a grey area to the typical Light vs Dark war we’ve seen in the past. This twist works brilliantly as the game became less about defending humanity, turning it into a preemptive full-scale assault against an enemy that is more powerful than ever before. It becomes apparent early on that the human generals will do anything to stop the enemy and this causes the game to pose questions about tactics used in war that could be unethical. It was an unexpected turn – you don’t often expect a game about alien invasions to question the boundaries of war and how far they should be pushed, but it certainly brought an element of humanity to the game.

Leading the charge against the Guardians is the Lucent Hive – enemies using The Light to draw the same powers as players. The serious issue however are the Hive Guardians; enemies acting as the player counterparts with the power to become Super Charged. Along with throwing void shields like Captain America, they also have corrupted ghosts – meaning that if you don’t destroy the ghost, they will respawn. I found that battles become more intense – even the standard fodder enemies have the ability to cause problems, especially if I was on my own, but the biggest trouble I had was that the Lucent Guardians are sparsely utilised. Bungie seemed to rely on using an overwhelming number of disposable grunts rather than the harder enemies and the combat becomes stale after defeating the same enemies wave after wave.

To counter the Hive, there are a new glut of weapons to get your mitts on and these can be found throughout the main story or by undertaking various raids and missions. But to mix things up, there’s a brand new weapon type, the glaive – it’s a power staff that can not only be used as a melee weapon, but shoots projectiles and can even have a shield option. Unlike the various swords and energy weapons we’re accustomed to, this retains the first person perspective and allows for a combination of melee attacks along with the long range blaster. Every time I use this weapon, it makes me feel like Gandalf has arrived in Destiny 2 and it’s such a simple weapon that it makes me wonder why Bungie hadn’t implemented it sooner. 

Along with the glaive, the weapon system has also seen an overhaul, as weapons and armour can now be upgraded by heading to Mars. I was able to have fun customising my current loadout, making fast weapons more impactful and giving the slower weapons a quicker reload function. As the seasons progress this will be further expanded upon but it was fun exploring the various loadout options. There is one big problem with upgrading the weapons though, and that’s its location. One third of Mars is carved out as a base of operations, with the rest of the planet making up Savathûn’s Throne World. The new map is smaller than the various planets and moons we can already visit and the lack of space means there is a lot of backtracking and visiting the same locations over and over again. I found that, while I enjoyed the story, the environment was boring and done to death half way through the season. 

That being said, I cannot overstate how much I’m looking forward to playing the next three seasons to complete The Witch Queen Expansion. It started off with a bang and the story brings changes to Destiny 2 that were needed. There are a couple of negatives to The Witch Queen, particularly with the smaller map, which is severely limited compared to other areas. I’d have also liked to have seen the Hive Guardians utilised more often, as they only seem to be trotted out sporadically, but these are just minor points on a well put together expansion. If the remainder of the year continues in this vein, it’ll be hard for me to leave The Witch Queen alone long enough to play other games. Even as it stands, The Witch Queen Expansion is a recommended addition to Destiny 2.

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In the interest of full disclosure, the publisher provided VGamingNews with a copy of The Witch Queen expansion in order to conduct this review.

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