Bungie's bid to keep Destiny 2 as the premiere online-only multiplayer first-person shooter video game suffered a setback with the release of Destiny 2's second DLC, Curse of Osiris back in December. The ship was somewhat righted with a series of sandbox updates and the second DLC, Warmind last May.
But fans of the game are thinking it will take an Expansion similar to Destiny 1's The Taken King to truly draw back lapsed players and return Destiny 2 to the heights of its popularity. Well, the video starts off with a series of Bungie employees promising that all of the community feedback they've received in the last year about Destiny 2 has been addressed in the upcoming expansion. But has the studio truly addressed all of the primary complaints and issues making D2 unsatisfying for many gamers?
As previously promised, Bungie unveiled a lot of details about their Year 2 plans in a stream yesterday. Gamefragger is here to rundown everything you need to know, including release dates, prices and more about Forsaken so that you can determine whether you're hopping off the Destiny 2 train for good or need to start planning your release day parties.
Note: This summary is aimed at Veteran Destiny players
General Info
Release Date: September 4, 2018
Price: $39.99
Official Story Synopsis: Following years of strife, what remains of the Reef has fallen to lawlessness. You and Cayde-6 are sent to personally investigate the recent unrest. Upon arrival, you soon discover the most-wanted criminals in the Prison of Elders have organized an escape. Beyond the Vanguard’s authority, you’ll pursue these fugitives deep into the Reef. Explore new regions, awaken new powers, earn powerful weapons, and uncover long-lost Awoken secrets. The hunt is on!
The Setting
Guardians will be venturing to the edge of the Reef and beyond. "
A barren landscape, with the asteroid vibe and tumbleweeds - that just sounded cool," said Steve Cotton, Game Director for Forsaken.
The first location players will venture to is
The Tangled Shore, which is described as a new part of the Reef that's never been seen before. It's a lawless, Western-inspired series of chained together asteroids where all of the escaped baddies from the Prison of Elders have gathered.
New Supers
Flaming knives and electricity-infused lasers! New Supers will be introduced in the Year 2 Expansion. There were no official names for the Supers released during the stream but for example, the Hunter's flaming-knives Super was described as an alternative to the Gunslinger.
Also, the Titan's Hammer of Sol super is being tweaked so that instead of throwing flaming hammers, the Titan will smash enemies with a colossal war mallet that also sends out fire torandos. The Hunter's arc Super was also shown but not discussed. It seems the arc staff can now be used to reflect projectile attacks back at the enemy in a series of swings that would make the TMNT's Donatello proud.
New Enemies
Finally! At long last, the Destiny franchise will be introducing a new enemy type outside of The Hive, Fallen and Cabal. And we're not talking about reskinned or augmented enemies a la the Fallen or SIVA. We're going to face a brand new enemy type called the Skorn. They're described as the most malevolent force in the Tangled Shore who will always seek to charge and push Guardians.
New Weapons
It looks like you won't have to pop your Void Super as a Hunter Nightstalker anymore to fire off your bow-and-arrow. The Forsaken expansion will bring laser arrows to every class. There will be a short-range bow, a medium-range bow and a long-range bow.
New Power Level
Eagle-eyed viewers of the stream from Bungie were able to pinpoint that it appears the new Power Level Cap for Year 2 will be 600. Whether that's 600 without Mods or 605 with Mods remains to be confirmed.
Basic 2.0 Update
Along with the Expansion, Bungie will also roll out a series of changes and modifications that will be available to all players, regardless of whether they've purchased Forsaken or not. These changes include the return of randomly-rolled weapons, the option to equip whatever weapon type you wish (bye, bye primary, energy and heavy) and an in-game list of all the weapons and armor that you have acquired and yet to acquire. As Sandbox Lead Josh Hamrick put it, if you want to play "crazy", roll with three shotguns, "Just for the fun of it."
Senior Sandbox Designer Greg Peng also stated that in addition to Random Rolls, the Mod system is also being "modified" (no pun intended) so that players can further customize a certain weapon. For example, if you're partial to the Origin Story Auto-Rifle, you could have 3 distinct versions of it that all handle and perform very differently. It also sounds as if the Masterwork system will be improved with the implementation of different levels. So, using a favorite weapon repeatedly will only make it stronger.
Other changes include the ability to delete shaders en masse and 200 extra vault spaces, bringing the total to 500.
Annual Pass
That's right. Bungie is finally rolling out a true annual pass for Destiny 2. But there's a catch. The Annual Pass does not include the Forsaken expansion. Individually, the Annual Pass will cost $34.99 or players can bundle the Forsaken Expansion and Annual Pass together for $$69.99 (saving you $5).
What's included in the Annual Pass is three future DLC additions (think Curse of Osiris and Warmind) that will be released Winter 2018, Spring 2019 and Summer 2019. They will be titled Black Armory, Joker's Wild and Penumbra, respectively. Some future content, likely weapons or cosmetic items, will be exclusive to Annual Pass holders.
Understandably (or predictably depending on your viewpoint), gamers are not happy with having to shell out more cash. Many purchasers of the Year 1 "Season Pass" feel they were ripped off with what they recieved in Curse of Osiris and Warmind.
Gambit Mode
There's a new mode that will be introduced in Forsaken, called Gambit, Guardians will find themselves in a PvPvE (Player vs Player vs Enemy) mode for the first time. Bungie's developers made the analogy that the new Gambit mode is like adding "bacon to peanut butter and jelly."
If you recall during the big summit that Bungie held in April where they flew the top Destiny 2 YouTubers and Twitch streamers to their HQ to get a first-look at the Fall expansion and discuss/brainstorm some of the problems plaguing D2, the Gambit mode was an element that was heavily teased as revolutionizing the way Destiny 2 is played.
How it works is that two teams of 4 will start out in separate areas where they will have to fight enemies to collect the tokens that they drop. Guardians will then have to collect these tokens and then deposit them into a vault/bank. Once you collect a certain number of tokens, one team will then be able to lock the opposing team's bank and send a powerful enemy to their arena that they will then have to defeat in order to unlock their bank.
In addition, one person from each team will be able to venture over into the opposing team's arena to attack them and sabotage their efforts.
Crucible Changes
Destiny 2 really seems to be all about Bungie's journey to return the game to Destiny 1's quality. Starting with Year 2, Power Levels will once again matter in Trials of the Nine and Iron Banner. In addition, there's a brand new mode that will also be unveiled (probably at E3) and 4 new maps.
A New Raid
No, not a new Raid Lair. A brand new Raid! The Bungie team stated that for the new Raid, they wanted to get back to the style of Guardians gathering together to go off on an epic adventure to slay a giant monster. The new raid is also described as having more bosses than any other raid before. Whether this means it will have more sub-bosses or a rotating final boss remains unclear.
The Bungie team also revealed that the new Raid will take place in the Dreaming City, an in-game destination. How that will work with the overall story mission structure of Forsaken is a mystery. Will players be able to access the Raid as a solo player? Or is there some mechanism that prevents entry without the required number of fire team members? A very interesting tidbit of info for all the lore enthusiasts out there is that the Dreaming City is described as the Awoken homeland.
E3 Plans
Bungie capped off their reveal with the tantalizing tease that there was still more to be revealed about the Year 2 expansion at E3 next week. It's probably a given that a new cinematic trailer will be released but what other secrets could Bungie have up their sleeve?