Destiny 2’s final update is live and still impressing players, with it putting up over 100,000 concurrent players a night on Steam and likely triple that on console. For players, it’s a sign that it is ridiculous to abandon the franchise, as all it needs is good content, and investment in good content, to return to form. But that’s not happening. At least not now, or for a very long while, if ever. There is, however, one good thing that has come from all of this, perhaps the only thing.
Destiny 2 is now complete. Or, at least, as complete as it’s ever going to be.
A consistent complaint about Destiny 2 is “FOMO,” the fear of missing out as the game keeps adding and adding content, but with much of it removed or changed time. That includes its in-between expansion seasons, or in contrast, new systems progression making gear or old builds irrelevant.
That’s no longer the case. You can literally buy all the content in Destiny 2 for $25 right now. Like, everything that’s left. We’re talking hundreds of dollars in releases and potentially thousands of hours of gameplay, depending on how hooked you get.
It was always somewhat difficult to get friends into Destiny 2, as they’d missed the beginning and the game kept moving as they tried to catch up, but now it’s done. No more content is coming or being removed, no more mass system changes will render gear irrelevant. With this new update, almost every activity in the game is now worth playing, given their updated rewards. Even good builds are not going to be nerfed at this point with no big sandbox balancing patches coming.
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It is awful for current players to see the game die, but Destiny 2, for the first time, is a complete experience. Well, almost. We still have the tragedy of the content vault, which eliminated the literal vanilla campaign of the base game, which has been the biggest barrier to onboarding. It also lost what is arguably its best standalone DLC (Warmind) and its best expansion (Forsaken), in addition to loads of Crucible maps, strikes, raids and more. Little of that has returned over the years.
But for what the game has been since Beyond Light, that’s all in one package. There is at least some level of an awkward Shaw Han-based intro, but once you’re in, you’re in. You can work your way through Shadowkeep, Beyond Light, The Witch Queen, Lightfall and The Final Shape, before moving to the unsteady, but still okay era of Edge of Fate and Renegades. Even with seasons and episodes removed, it’s a ton of content, and everything you’re going to be doing here now rewards you with relevant gear.
Given the state of the game, it may be doubtful you’ll be hooked on it for years like the current playerbase has been, as is the nature of a dead live service game. But it’s not dead, not really. So much of what has made Destiny great is still there, much of it is almost perfected through this last update. Even if you’ve waited a decade to try it, now is certainly a good time to see at least a glimpse of what everyone else has experienced.
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