Bungie has been on a roll for the past two years with Destiny 2. Following the disappointingShadowkeepandBeyond Lightexpansions, the studio hunkered down to change Destiny 2 for the better. Then, following some great seasons post-Beyond Light, Bungie deliveredDestiny 2: The Witch Queen, which ushered in a complete overhaul of how Destiny 2 campaigns work. It was a real breath of fresh air, and Bungie followed it with additional strong storytelling via the last four seasons. Now, another year has come with these seasonal stories leading to the latest expansion, Destiny 2: Lightfall. With years of buildup finally heading towards a final payoff, is Destiny 2: Lightfall the defining penultimate story before the grand finale or is this just more filler content?
Destiny 2: Lightfall kicks off with a bang. The Witness and its fleet of Pyramid ships have arrived to challenge the Traveler and its allies, but it quickly realizes it needs the Veil to proceed. In a panic, The Witness dispatches his latest disciple, Calus, to the Neptunian city of Neomuna to secure this mysterious Paracausal artifact. Upon arriving in Neonuma, it’s a race against time to prevent Calus from securing the Veil and dooming the Solar System.
Destiny 2: Lightfall’s story channels vanilla Destiny in the worst possible ways. It’s about eight hours of proper nouns continuously thrown at you by characters who apparently know what they’re talking about yet don’t have time to explain these concepts to the player. It’s an overly-vague tale that has trouble focusing on one subject long enough before moving on to the next. At first, it’s about finding the Veil, then mastering Strand, and then weirdly enough, it takes a sharp detour to focus on Nezarec, all before settling on the Veil again for the final mission.
The lack of focus does a disservice to Destiny 2’s characters outside of Caital, who does get some cathartic moments with her father, Calus. Mainstays like Zavala, Mara Sov, Ikora Rey and Crow are left entirely out of the campaign. Meanwhile, newcomers Rohan and Nimbus are horribly used to manufacture drama that doesn’t resonate due to how little screen time either has. No character gets it worse than Osiris, who is transformed into a profoundly-unlikable character for the story’s sake. After spending a year trapped by Savathun and another in a coma, Osiris deserved better.
Lightfall was heavily marketed as the arrival of The Witness, the big bad of the Light and Dark saga. Unfortunately, it’s barely in the story appearing only in cutscenes. While intimidating, Lightfall never defines its powers, strength or just how much of a match it is for our Guardians. A hopeless battle with The Witness would have gone a long way in setting up why it’s so dangerous. Calus also feels poorly utilized after more than six years of buildup. Despite an impressive get-up and memorable moments in past content, in Lightfall he’s nothing more than a reskinned Colossus and Gladiator.
Destiny 2: Lightfall’s story is an unfocused mess that jumps between various plot points and proper nouns. While it would always be difficult to top The Witch Queen’s focused narrative and its antagonist, Savathun, Lightfall doesn’t even try. To add insult to injury, Bungie recently stated that answers to Lightfall’s biggest questions would be answered in the following seasons, begging why this story even needed to be told and at its price.
To Bungie’s credit, The Witch Queen’s great campaign structure was carried over to Lightfall. The campaign is broken into eight missions with specific story objectives. One moment you’ll be escaping Calus' flagship, and the next you’ll be waging a hopeless defense against an onslaught of Cabal. Unlike previous expansions, there’s no filler ‘go kill x amount of enemies’ missions. Destiny 2: Lightfall’s story never amounts to much of anything, but there are at least decent missions to play through. Legendary Mode also returns, pumping in a significant amount of challenge as long as you can build out a fireteam.
Bolstering the expansion is the new Darkness subclass, Strand. While Beyond Light emphasized Stasis as a gift from The Witness to entice us to join it, Lightfall has Strand appear without any narrative reason. While weird, Strand is a blast and an excellent addition to the sandbox. Titans rip enemies to shreds with Strand blades, Hunters whip them out of existence with a versatile rope dart and Warlocks unleash storms of enemy-seeking missiles. Unlike Stasis, acquiring the aspects and fragments needed to customize your Strand build is relatively easy with minimal grind. Strand is a fun and worthwhile addition alongside the current subclasses when fully kitted. If there’s a downside to Strand, it’s the mobility options. Though the Grapple promised to change how we move around in Destiny 2, the reality is that it doesn’t thanks to unnecessarily long cooldown times and a lack of well-designed play spaces to make it worthwhile. As it currently stands, sacrificing a grenade for the Grapple isn’t worth it.
Much of that can be laid at Neomuna’s feet. The much-hyped new patrol zone is an utter disappointment. Despite being the first non-destroyed location, Neomuna feels just as dead and empty as any of the other patrol zones, which are actual ruins. Part of this comes from narrative convenience (its populace having uploaded their minds into the cloud) and the other from design. The patrol zone is just as flat as the others and conveniently broken out into three distinct areas that house various Cabal and Vex threats, lost sectors and public events. With its lack of verticality, there’s not much of a reason to choose the Grapple over your trusty Sparrow. For a city gleaming with neon light, Neomuna lacks the life that would make it feel new and engaging.
Destiny 2’s gameplay does remain engaging six years later. The delicate balance of shooting, platforming and abilities remains as tight and precise as ever, and Strand helps add some freshness to the combat. Arriving alongside the expansion are a host of quality improvements available for everyone. None of this can hide that this is a six-year game, however, and that Destiny 2: Lightfall falls into the same issue that The Witch Queen did: a lack of new content. Strand, Neomuna and the Tormentor enemy are new, but that’s about it.
Regarding core game content, Lightfall adds only one new Strike, no new Crucible maps and no new Gambit maps. While The Witness has arrived, his Darkness-filled army hasn’t. We’re still fighting against the same two factions (Cabal and Vex) that have been in the franchise since 2014 and neither side received any new units with this expansion. Destiny 2 remains fun to play, but Lightfall only brings a little new to the table to make that gameplay feel refreshing.
Closing Comments
Destiny 2: The Witch Queen was the evolution Destiny 2 needed with its great story, revamped campaign structure and enough interesting activities to keep players excited. Destiny 2: Lightfall only had to follow that template and continue building toward the ultimate conclusion of this saga. It doesn’t, delivering a threadbare story and a dangerously-low amount of new content for its cost. The story is incoherent and nonsensically jumps back and forth between different plot threads. The campaign does at least provide a handful of great missions and an excellent Strike to play through, and it’s all helped by the fact that Strand is a brilliant subclass that spices up the gameplay. Destiny 2: Lightfall’s biggest problem, however, is that for $50-$100, it provides little new or exciting content. One Strike, no Crucible maps, no Gambit maps, the same patrol zone design and the same enemies. Strand is fabulous, some of the campaign missions are truly masterful, and the game remains genuinely fun, but these can’t offset Destiny 2: Lightfall’s shortcomings. Destiny 2: Lightfall is just another filler expansion on the pathway to the final showdown.
Destiny 2: Lightfall
Reviewed on PlayStation 5
