As a collection of missions,
Shadowkeep’s campaign is largely
business as usual. You’ll fight your
way to an arena and kill a big Ogre.
You’ll fight your way to an arena and
kill a big Captain. You’ll fight your
way to an arena and
kill a big Wizard, and
then run away very
fast. There isn’t the
same thematic
playfulness as, say,
Forsaken’s campaign,
which used the skillset
of each Baron as the
basis for how you’d
beat them. Instead, Shadowkeep
works in part because of the reason
Destiny always works—it feels good
to shoot the guns—but also because,as an environment, the Moon is
dripping with atmosphere.
The campaign’s ending may be
abrupt, but, as always, the expansion’s
story is more of a tease of things to
come—some of it through the next
year of seasonal releases, the rest
likely further out still. In the
meantime the familiar and steady
rhythm of Destiny 2 resumes after
players have hit the relatively
easy-to-reach soft power cap of 900.
The slower journey to the hard cap of
950 may have been remixed, but the
notes are largely the same—relying on
the weekly drops of powerful gear
from three-player Strike missions,
Crucible PvP matches, the still-
brilliant competitive PvE of Gambit,
and the new raid, which challenges
players with a series of puzzle-like
encounters among the Vex-infested
greenery of the Black Garden.POWER UP
There’s a renewed focus on bounties
now, with each vendor offering a
powerful reward if you complete a
set number within a week. Thanks to
the XP awards now granted by
bounties, which award progress along
a season pass full of goodies as well
as powering up the new seasonal
artefact, the steady tick of treats
keeps things moving at a nice pace.
That said, I’d love a central bounty
board that collected them all up for
easy access. Nothing delays a fireteam
like having to bounce between
vendors hoovering up bounties for
every activity that might be on the
cards for that evening.
As for specific additions and
changes, yes, there’s a new Nightfall
variant—The Ordeal, which has
curated modifiers that increase in
number as you up the difficulty. Yes,
the Crucible playlists have been
retooled, giving players more control
over what mode they play (and
letting you earn Glory score without
ever having to suffer through a round
of Countdown). And yes, there are
new Strikes and a couple of Crucible
maps from the first game that makeNEED TO KNOW
WHAT IS IT?
The spooky third
expansion for
loot-shooter Destiny 2
EXPECT TO PAY
$35
DEVELOPER
Bungie
PUBLISHER
In-house
REVIEWED ON
GeForce GTX 1070,
16GB RAM, i5-6600k
MULTIPLAYER
MMO-ish
LINK
bungie.netAs an
environment
the Moon is
dripping with
atmosphereI
t was a mistake to refer to Destiny 2 and its ilk as ‘games-as-a-
service’. ‘Service’ implies consistency and a smooth user
experience. Destiny 2 is something else. Destiny 2 is games-as-an-
infrastructure—a subway system that gradually builds into
something bigger and more sprawling; that needs to be constantly
maintained; that will sometimes keep you waiting because such projects
are complicated and the people running them can’t do everything at once.GHOST STORIES
The Moon may be haunted, but DESTINY 2: SHADOWKEEP
hopes to fill Bungie’s shooter with life. By Phil Savage
D R E S S T I N Y
The path to 960 is paved with fashion crimes750-900
POWER
As you journey to
the soft cap, every
bit of loot you pick
up will be higher
level than your best
gear. Don’t infuse
your favorites: Just
accept looking
terrible.900-950
POWER
Progress is slower
as you head
towards the hard
cap. You’ll pick up a
mismatched set of
world drops, but
should also
consider infusing
some of your guns.950-960
POWER
The last ten levels
will only drop
through ‘pinnacle’
activities such as
the new raid. Time
to spend upgrade
cores on infusions.
Get your look right,
Guardian.With Shadowkeep, Bungie is
redrawing the map. The expansion
adds a revitalized tourist
destination—the Moon, returning
from the first Destiny with a handful
of new attractions and a fresh coat of
paint—but also
spearheads a more
fundamental shift in
purpose. A series of
small tweaks and
changes that add up
to something that feels
at once far-reaching
and, paradoxically,
not as dramatic as it
first seems.
Players return to the Moon in
search of series regular Eris Morn,
the Destiny character voted most
likely to keep a LiveJournal.
Shadowkeep’s campaign manages to
highlight both the best and worst of
Bungie’s storytelling. The specific
objectives are tiresomely monologued
by Eris before you head out; the
mystical technobabble ensuring I
rarely ever know what I’m actually
doing. The broad strokes are that you
need to forge a new, special armor
set, but the delivery is rendered
obtuse thanks to the density of arcane
Hive rituals and mystical MacGuffins.
And yet! On a wider level it’s a
triumph, thanks to an overarching
threat that feels grand in both its
menace and in the way Bungie has
seeded it throughout the last two
years of the game. As someone who’s
read my fair share of Destiny lore
collectibles, coming face to face with
the thing that hides beneath the
Moon felt dramatic and shocking. “I
have to deal with one of those?” I felt
unprepared, which speaks to how
successfully Bungie has teased the
Destiny universe’s larger antagonist.REVIEW