Bad Moon Rising.
For a player that hasn’t made Destiny 2 their full-time game in quite some time, I was eager to see what Shadowkeep would offer a returning player. I stopped playing the title shortly after the release of Forsaken, an expansion that was good enough but didn’t really pull me back in to take on the daily grind of getting ready for more challenging events or activities like the Raid. With Bungie recently going on their own, breaking away from Activision, I was curious about what the studio would do next. With making Destiny 2 largely free to play, and returning to the moon, I jumped back in to soak up the nostalgia and see what the game had in store for me.
While much of this content is dipped in the setting of a well-trodded area from the first Destiny, the moon features a wealth of new locations and changes that shake it up just enough to satisfy what I wanted from it. The campaign itself is a short series of missions with returning boss encounters, and there are a decent amount of activities added to keep my interest solid for I would say at least a week or so. Shadowkeep also brings with it a Fortnite style battle pass and the Armor 2.0 system which seems to be the kick in the pants the gear system truly needed, allowing a wide range of customization that rewards you the more you play and unlock. While Shadowkeep didn’t knock my socks off, it did reinvigorate my desire to jump back in and take up that satisfying shooting that Bungie continues to excel at delivering.
Told through many interactions with returning character, Eris Morn, you’ll dive back into the moon to investigate a new Hive threat. As you continue to push through the story, red ghosts start to appear everywhere, making the moon a much more haunted and spooky place than it ever was before. In fact, many locations on the moon fully embrace this with pits echoing voices and screams and the moody aesthetic change is a welcome one. With Destiny 2 adding Lost Sectors, the moon has been altered and enlarged from its previous self to incorporate these vast new locations, expanding on areas I have already spent hundreds of hours in before. While the criticisms of Bungie reusing old content for its DLC is somewhat valid, I’m still impressed with the changes they’ve made to the moon in tone and scale.
Depending on the fireteam and pace you’re pushing through the campaign, you’re looking at roughly 4-5 hours for the story to reach its end, to say nothing of the various side quests and additional objectives that appear shortly after. You'll encounter numerous threats from the original Destiny and several of its later ones that were featured prominently in The Dark Below. These Nightmare Hunt encounters are changed considerably from their original battles, given many of them were part of raids, and it is a very interesting experience to take on Crota one on one with the sword. These encounters are very satisfying to an OG Destiny player and considering many players are new to the series, I’m interested in how a new player will embrace these ‘returning’ threats.
New and returning players will also see their power level start at 750, making them more than compatible to start a wealth of content that was previously locked off due to needing to massively grind towards it. While that grind is still here for many of the new activities, it doesn’t feel so far away now, given how fast you’ll accrue Power, at least until you reach around 910-915, and then you’ll start to see the Power level climb slow to a crawl. Thankfully, Destiny 2 has a wealth of activities and bounties available to slowly push you into Raid ready territory.
The Garden of Salvation Raid is live and its World’s first clear took around 6 hours, a final encounter that made many high profile teams struggle. The Raid itself only features two bosses and is more designed around learning the new tethering mechanic that is used during nearly every single encounter. While previous Raids have always had a few mechanics to learn the in’s and out’s of, GOS is probably the most mechanically demanding one since it’s incredibly easy to trigger a full party wipe with the smallest error. The experience does come with a series of new Raid gear, but having the right team and proper communication is more important than ever before.
One of the new co-op activities offered with Shadowkeep is a six-player event called the Vex Offensive. You’ll eventually earn the quest to unlock it and it’ll require grinding some intense encounters on the moon called Vex invasions. These are highlighted on the moon by a large and unmissable lightning storm, followed by waves and waves of incoming Vex and a staggering health bar to its Gatekeeper. After dealing with these encounters, you’ll unlock the new co-op mode for play. Vex Offensive has you move from location to location within the Black Garden completeing objectives before you take on the Crotheon Gatekeeper at its end. It’s an engaging activity the first few times but does lessen its appeal when you start to move past the Power level that its items drop at, or at least it wasn’t dropping anything higher than what I had the half dozen times I completed the activity.
Described as Armor 2.0, Bungie has removed the consumable armor mods in favor off something a bit more flexible. Each armor piece has an energy rating attached to it. You can increase this amount with various currency and items, allowing for more powerful mods to equip to that particular piece. Some mods will increase the amount of ammo a certain gun can hold, or how fast your grenade can charge up. There are a ton of mods to inject into your gear and they are not consumed on use, letting you tinker away without worrying about wasting them. While this system doesn’t revolutionize the game in any significant way, it does offer a wider range of flexibility that wasn’t present before, opening up a wealth of new ways to use your gear and create customized builds around what you need at that given moment.
While mods make a sizable shift in how you approach combat, Bungie has added finishers to your repertoire as well, unleashing final blow attacks when enemies reach a certain health threshold. As you attack enemies, a small orange circle will hover above their head, indicating that you can then perform the finisher. These attacks are then joined by an animation like stabbing them with a knife or pulling off a sweet dropkick. I was surprised how much this changed up my combat as it put me in the thick of it far more often than I was used to, all to get that satisfying crunch of my attack landing across their face. It’s a small addition sure, but a very satisfying one nonetheless.
Destiny 2 is now based around seasons, using a battle pass style system that has replaced your standard level up component. Each time you fill the experience bar, it unlocks new gear and various items. Free players have access to a single line of rewards, where season pass holders gain an additional rewards tier. You’ll unlock large deposits of glimmer, emblems, gear, and numerous rewards the further down you go. You’ll also unlock an Artifact that has its own experience bar that contains numerous armor and weapon mods that can help out in pretty big ways. As you push through the options here, the added bonus of this Artifact is that it will increase your power rating as well.
Bungie has stated that Shadowkeep is the start of where they plan to take Destiny 2 forward, and it shows that they want the game to satisfy veterans and newcomers alike with a variety of new content being rolled out consistently. With the offering of a free-to-play option and changes to many of its core systems, Destiny 2 is in a much better place than it’s ever been. New players will see a ton of content available free and existing and returning players will see a decent amount of new modes, activities, public events, and a new Raid to dive into. While it’s clear that Bungie is planning the future for Destiny 2, it’s an interesting choice to see it return to its past to do so.
Destiny 2: Shadowkeep was purchased by the reviewer and played on an Xbox One X.
All screenshots were taken on an Xbox One X.