Future 2’s newest season simply went dwell earlier this week, and gamers are already feeling tremendous bummed out about it. In some ways it appears like simply one other reskin of the identical hamster wheel we’ve been operating on for years, and the burnout is extra actual than ever. The excellent news is that Bungie says it hears the suggestions. The dangerous information is that it’ll take near a yr for the area MMO oil tanker that’s Future 2 to show in a brand new route.
“I simply needed to step in and say: Heard loud and clear on the suggestions with our present seasonal backbones,” the sport director, Joe Blackburn, tweeted yesterday. “The workforce is happy to place some extra inventive danger in seasonal progressions, however there will likely be a while earlier than the suggestions catches up with the dev cycle.”
He went on to preview what sorts of upcoming adjustments gamers can anticipate to assist clean up the five-year outdated loot shooter. Some, like Guardian Ranks and cyberpunk metropolis Neomuna, will arrive in February’s huge new growth, Lightfall. Others, like new techniques for seasonal development and “extra novel exercise setup[s],” will arrive in Season 21 and past subsequent June. “On the seasonal pursuit facet our main focus is decreasing complexity and enhancing the synergy between your seasonal pursuits and the remainder of the sport,” Blackburn wrote.
Whereas imprecise and jargony, the feedback are addressed to very actual emotions of frustration and exhaustion within the Future group. Since Bungie moved away from discrete DLC updates to a fixed seasonal churn funded by battle passes and microtransactions, the sport has benefited from a gentle stream of latest content material, but additionally struggled to interrupt new floor.
G/O Media might get a fee
Every new season begins with a narrative mission. Then gamers get a seasonal artifact, improve it by grinding the brand new seasonal exercise, and slowly unlock new seasonal mods, energy boosts, and battle cross ranks. Story content material and improve progress is gated week-to-week. By about week eight, the narrative wraps up till the ultimate story beat drops sooner or later close to the tip of the season. Then Groundhog Day begins once more.
It was advantageous for the primary couple of expansions, however as every new season has arrived with flashy new character reveals however minimal adjustments to the underlying construction, the entire thing’s begun to put on very skinny. The story and weapons are nice. Every thing connecting them is a drag. I hit my restrict over the summer season. A rising refrain of different gamers have began to get fed up extra not too long ago. Future 2 hit its lowest participant counts ever final month, and regardless of contemporary content material to dive into with Season of Seraph, participant morale remains to be very low.
Lightfall, as Blackburn alludes to, will little doubt change folks’s moods. 2022’s Witch Queen was distinctive in some ways, and subsequent yr’s growth seems very promising as far as properly, full with overhauled social options and a brand new magic grappling hook. However the seasonal mannequin was aimed toward making the sport really feel contemporary all yr lengthy, not only for the few weeks after a brand new DLC. Whereas the repetitive and cookie-cutter method Bungie has taken up to now is comprehensible from a manufacturing standpoint, it’s clear the upcoming seasons have to take extra dangers in the event that they’re going to outlive.
Although it sounds prefer it may be some time till that occurs. “There’s nonetheless novelty, thematic selection, and new methods to progress your character coming to Future over the following a number of months,” Blackburn tweeted. “However whereas we work to make use of this suggestions in our future releases, I needed to verify everybody is aware of that your phrases aren’t falling on deaf ears.”
