Backlash has begun over ‘Destiny 2: Lightfall’ backlash

Destiny 2’s new Lightfall expansion had everything the opposite of a honeymoon period, with immediate opposition from the larger community regarding its content.

But now, the backlash to this backlash has begun. Why? Three main things happened:

1) Most avid gamers have now beaten the campaign and the story to This campaign is the worst part of the expansion and how your first impression is. But coming to the expansion, the new seasonal content and the huge quality of life changes that came with Lightfall, there are actually many positives to be found.

2) Bungie has released all Strand shards, basically doubling the amount of available fragments that were supposed to be timed until the next reset or the world’s first raid race next Friday, for some reason. This allowed players to unlock a huge selection of Strand builds, including a part that solves the “Your Struggle Never Ends” issue which was a huge shift from the low cooldown based campaign. Strand has made the full 180 from feeling underwhelming, and like a very intrusive part of the campaign (which it is) to being one of the more fun subs, and arguably has a more solid backing than Beyond Light’s Stasis.

3) IGN published a Lightfall Roasting Review, written by my enemy and former Fireteam Chat member Travis Northup, who gave the expansion a 5/10. Even those who criticized the expansion got together to go “Who, whoa, it had issues but it’s not *5*!” The reflexive defense of expansion got everyone talking about what actually works about expansion that many people fail to see.

In short, the Lightfall campaign isn’t that good, at least from a storytelling perspective (I’d argue it’s still pretty compelling from a combat perspective). That was everyone’s first impression of the expansion, and that’s why it was there direct negative reaction. It feels like filler. The characters feel like they’re hitting the wrong tone. A lot is unexplained, Destiny 1 style. You can cut out the whole story and paste the first and last clips together and not miss much.

But… that overlooks everything else that came with this expansion. Everyone braced for the Strand, which seemed to miss it until all the temporal doorways were lifted, alien species were bred and everyone started making wild builds. The shield charging system seemed like a step back, but it’s pretty easy to figure it out and start making builds that are roughly equivalent to what we’re used to, with a few exceptions. QoL changes are particle. The gear is incredible, and not having a million seasonal coins is great. Industry has been streamlined and no longer a daunting grind. The new and exotic weapons in particular are really fun.

Outside of the campaign, there are two other minor additions that have yet to get quite right. The Guardian Rank system looks very easy (everyone gets a Level 6 Veteran very easily) and very hard (it resets from 6 to 12 times per season). Compliments, though well-intentioned, have turned into mindless spam because they are associated with powerful drops and wins. But they can be fixed and are relatively minor features, unlike, say, the entire Lightfall campaign.

the story He is Important for sure, but not enough to drown out the entire expansion that arrived along with a lot of cool stuff. I hope The Final Shape makes improvements, but Lightfall isn’t the disaster some make it out to be.

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