their PC debut. But there’s also a lot
of repeating the same things that
we’ve been doing for over a year. You
will run the Pyramidion strike and
earn a Ten Paces. You will play a
Control match on Vostok and be
rewarded with a Does Not Compute.
The lack of new world or vendor
loot isn’t a surprise—if Destiny 2
game director Luke Smith’s essay on
the state of the game pre-Shadowkeep
had a single throughline, it was the
limitations of what a development
team can reasonably produce.
Nevertheless, I was surprised how
much being awarded the same old
guns hurt my excitement for the
year ahead. Ah, here we go again:
Another year of
dismantling Go Figure.
That isn’t to say
there aren’t new guns.
Both Shadowkeep and
the Vex Offensive
activity that headlines
the Season of the
Undying (which runs in
parallel to the
expansion’s release), each have their
own new weapons. If anything,
though, they’re too generously
awarded. Ever since seasons were
separated from DLC with Season of
the Forge and the Black Armory, each
has had a different approach to
awarding weapons. Last season’s
Menagerie felt like it hit the sweet
spot: Letting players decide what
weapons or armor to chase. The Vex
Offensive approach appears to be all
guns, all the time. I’ve played maybe
eight rounds of the event to
completion and have amassed nine
scout rifles. It feels like overkill.
On the other side of the loot pool,
the chase for new armor sets does at
least have more obvious purpose.
Shadowkeep brings new armor stats
and a new, ostensibly more flexible
mod system. Instead of consumables,
mods are now unlocks—free to be
switched in and out into any armor
piece of the same elemental affinity.
Any armor you collected before
Shadowkeep will remain tied to the
old mod system, but will also—in my
experience, at least—have been
assigned some woeful stat rolls as a
heavy-handed incentive to switch.
Your mileage will vary with the
new system. Being able to easily
experiment with different mods is a
change for the better, but the
elemental restrictions feel rooted in
old-school MMO design in a way that
will likely be at odds with how some
play the game. Personally I like a little
friction when it comes
to theorycrafting
builds, although the
foundations of
Shadowkeep’s armor
system aren’t as solid as
I’d like. The biggest
issue is that, if I’m
using a solar helmet,
for instance, I can only
see the solar mods. The system needs
a Collections tab that lets me see both
the mods I’ve earned and where to
unlock the ones I haven’t. The
theorycrafting potential is interesting,
but that only works if you can easily
see the possibilities.
For this reason the seasonal
artifact is a much stronger addition.
With it, you can unlock a selection of
mods that will only be available
throughout the Season of the
Undying. As someone who
remembers Destiny more as a series
of metas—the year of being killed by
Graviton Lance, the year of being
killed by Luna’s Howl, the hilarious
weekend of being killed by
Prometheus Lens—I’m excited by the
idea of formalizing it. That said, this
season’s inclusion of an enhancedsub-machine gun loader perhaps
wasn’t the most interesting way to
shake things up given The Recluse’s
continued dominance in PvE.GENEROUS OFFERINGS
Where Shadowkeep was billed as a
bold new template for the third year,
the reality is messier. Nowhere is this
more clear than for ‘New Light’, the
new user experience that puts the
emphasis on repeatable activities and
playing with friends. It’s great in
theory: Certainly the amount of stuff
you get for the newly free-to-play
base game is incredibly generous. But
it also does a bad job of onboarding
new players. After a short
introductory mission, you arrive at
the Tower only to be inundated with
quests. It’s confusing and unhelpful,
to the point where I’ve had a couple
of friends who are trying out the
game ask me how you even find the
campaigns. For reference, they’re
with the shipbuilder.
To be clear, Destiny 2 is still an
engaging shooter that—when you
step back and take stock of all that it
has to offer—is absolutely packed full
of stuff to do. Shadowkeep is both an
entertaining assortment of new
activities and a solid base from which
the game at large can build and
improve. But Shadowkeep also doesn’t
feel like Destiny 2’s final form, and
there’s a real sense that there’s still
much left to be tweaked and
tightened. The subway is being
refurbished slowly, one station at a
time. That doesn’t stop me from
enjoying the ride.76
Not the best or neatest
expansion in the series’
history, but Shadowkeep
sets a solid foundation
for what’s to come.VERDICTPersonally I
like a little
friction when it
comes to
theorycraftingGUN GAME Please enjoy shooting some of these good guns
ERIANA’S VOW
What is it? Exotic
hand cannon
Poses the question: What if a
cannon was a sniper rifle?
Answers it by being good.DEATHBRINGER
What is it? An exotic
rocket launcher
Angry metal and Hive magic.
Drops big, dirty void orbs that
carpet bomb the area.PLUPERFECT
What is it? A legendary
assault rifle
Pretty standard, but it just
makes an incredibly satisfying
noise when you fire it.OPTATIVE
What is it? A legendary
hand cannon
Sure, it’s just another hand
cannon. But look how cool all
the new Vex weapons look!THE RECLUSE
What is it? The best gun in
the game
OK, so it’s not a new gun. But
Shadowkeep hasn’t stopped it
being the best gun in the game.REVIEW