This was a long time coming. I've been talking about doing this for a while, and now, we're here. Let me preface this with a small story.
I have been playing Destiny since around the House of Wolves expansion. My friends and I had run numerous Raids, custom matches in Crucible, Nightfalls, and other activities. I met a great deal of people, most of which I still talk to, even though we have moved on to other games.
Destiny 2 came out, and with it, Clans. We ran more Raids, more activities, and by the time Forsaken was released, we were mostly content with everything in the game. There were plenty of locales to choose from, and even more activities.
Then, Beyond Light came around.
To be honest, I think that Beyond Light was the "beginning of the end" for me and Destiny. With a snap of their fingers, Bungie removed the planets of Titan, Io, Mercury, and Mars. They also removed the activities that these planets provided, such as Escalation Protocol and the entire base game Campaign. Oh, and my purchases of Curse of Osiris and Warmind were now completely invalidated.
And the worst part of all of that is that they had nothing to replace the content they removed. It's just gone.
Oh, right. That's when they started raising the Power on all equipment so that new players could just jump into the seasonal content. And then they kept doing it, making everyone's grind for better armor and weapons pointless. What's the point of getting the "best" gear if everyone's just gonna spawn as strong as you next season?
Stasis was a fun idea, but got nerfed into the ground. Why bother to get that new power set when it's constantly being outpaced by your normal subclasses?
Then, Bungie made two decisions. One good, and one absolutely horrible.
The good decision was releasing Witch Queen. This DLC brought with it a new locale to fight through, along with enemy Lightbearer Hive. The set pieces and story beats were pretty good in my opinion, and weapon crafting completely turned the game on its head. Instead of grinding for hours and maybe getting that godroll Pulse Rifle, now you can just make a godroll!
Honestly, my only complaint with the crafting system is that there just aren't enough weapons to craft. I legitimately had fun mixing and matching perks on my weapons to find out what best suited my play style.
And then, they got rid of Forsaken.
...To be fair, they just removed the Tangled Shore, but that's where the Campaign took place. People couldn't even play that campaign anymore, and it was one of the better Destiny 2 stories. So, let me do a quick recap:
The base game of Destiny 2 costed $60. That later became free.
Curse of Osiris and Warmind were $30 a piece (I think). They were entirely removed.
Forsaken was $60, as much as the base game. This was also removed.
That's $180 that I spent, only to have my purchases invalidated.
Shadowkeep was $60 also. Nothing happened to it as far as I know, but just keep this price in mind.
Beyond Light's Special Edition Upgrade was $80-$90.
Witch Queen also had a special edition for $90.
Guess what? So did Lightfall.
All in all, it put me another $240 back just to play the game and hope it got better.
Lightfall quickly dashed any hope of the game saving itself.
Now, let me list off everything that I didn't like about this DLC.
Firstly, the "story". It was certainly... Referenced. I guess Rohan's death was... Uh, memorable? But the entire point of why we're here in Neomuna, the Veil, is never explained. At all. It's just "important", I guess.
Next up, the location. Neomuna. It's completely empty. There are no NPCs besides the two vendors. It's just another empty, ruined city, just like the EDZ, and the Cosmodrome, and the Ishtar Sink in D1, and the Mars location in D1, and...
After that, we come to the characters.
Oh, where do I begin?
Rohan is just another mentor figure who dies. Osiris is a prick to everyone, especially the player, and the reason for all of that is because he's stressed. He wants us to hurry up and master Strand, a power we barely even figured out existed, because the Witness is just hanging out by the Traveler.
Oh, right. The Witness. He isn't written well. He's just some edgy "Life is suffering, so I'm gonna kill everyone" villain. He also has the emotional maturity of a fucking toddler. When Calus (rightfully) questions the Witness's "plan" about the Veil, he essentially just goes "Shut up, my plan is perfect lol" in an angry tone. And we're supposed to be intimidated by him.
The only other character in this DLC is someone I've been intentionally avoiding talking about. Nimbus.
Nimbus is the worst person I have had the displeasure of meeting. I've heard somewhere that his official pronouns are they, but I don't know anymore. Or care. Nimbus is a cringy attempt to replace Cayde-6's humor in Destiny. How did they try to do this? By making them talk like a Marvel Movie superhero, of course!
Like, when Rohan dies, Nimbus's mentor and father figure, not even one cutscenes passes before they're trying to make jokes about it! Fuck, it's almost like they just forgot that Nimbus was supposed to have anything akin to a realistic reaction to Rohan meeting his demise. Instead, we essentially get a "Erm... That happened." From Nimbus.
While we're on the topic of the story, let's talk about two things that I really have a problem with. The Rocky-esque training sequence with Strand is... awful. It seems to paint our character as inept when it comes to Strand, but we've been using it for the entire Campaign with destructive success! I'm not saying we should instantly be a master of it, but we have experience! There's no reason why we should be unraveling ourselves!
All Nimbus's "training" montage is... It's just them surfing. That's it.
Finally, the ending. Oh boy, the ending.
You just beat Calus, and his adoptive daughter is standing in the room, clearly mourning his death. Nimbus, seeing this, decides to make jokes about Calus and offer a fist bump to everyone.
Then, the Witness pulls a power out of his ass, and assumes controls your Ghost. He's never demonstrated this power before, but I guess he can do it. Whatever.
Then, everyone just kinda says that we lost because the Witness painted a triangle on the Traveler.
That's it.
That is the ending, and the straw that broke the camel's back. My disappointment is immeasurable, and the game is ruined. I'm done.
This has nothing to do with the quest, but I needed to put this somewhere. If you read all of this, thank you.
] An alien from the planet Mars!
