Our Verdict
Future 2: The Ultimate Form ties up a decade’s price of story, battle, and relationships in essentially the most participating and emotionally satisfying means attainable. Bungie’s best-in-class narrative crew has outdone itself, the fight and gunplay sit on the pinnacle of the FPS style, and I’ve in the end by no means performed something prefer it.
The less-than-favorable response to 2023’s Lightfall enlargement meant all eyes had been on Future 2: The Ultimate Form and all the things it stands for. Might this final and pivotal installment in a decade-long saga probably meet the astronomically excessive expectations positioned upon it? In brief, completely.
Future 2′s newest enlargement is gargantuan. boasting diverse content material, a beautiful new world to discover, and a fittingly epic but lovely conclusion that doubles as an ideal send-off for a few of my favourite characters. All of this whereas additionally introducing an elusive new enemy faction and providing among the most gorgeous videogame places possible.
I can’t assist however stare in awe as I land on the pathway to the Traveler’s Pale Coronary heart. Surrounded by particles and engulfed in the Witness’ haunting whispers, I’m quickly jumpscared by a member of the brand new enemy faction, the Dread, as one divebombs me from round a nook.
My first precedence is to get caught into the marketing campaign. At eight missions lengthy, it’s an identical size to different Future 2 DLC on paper, however the actuality is there’s twelve hours of content material right here, even for knowledgeable gamers, because of the elevated issue, dungeon-like mechanics, and prolonged cutscenes. After efficiently traversing the portal’s pathway, I’m thrown into the Pale Coronary heart, and it’s nothing wanting gorgeous. Lush inexperienced environments make solution to nostalgic segments of areas from instances passed by, such because the previous Tower and the Speaker’s room.
The Pale Coronary heart seemingly accommodates each my recollections and people of the Witness, which is represented visually by way of the surroundings maliciously mutating round me. I see tangled roots knotted in Darkness power, and enemies I’ve confronted numerous instances now segmented and sliced up, frozen in time. I see acquainted areas tainted by corruption, twisted and disembodied palms function imitation bushes, and contorted faces stare again at me from inside the partitions. In every single place I look there’s one thing new, one thing bizarre, one thing attention-grabbing that captures my consideration.
My fireteam is shipped to the Vanguard Commander Zavala’s former residence – solely now it’s plagued with Darkness, with smoke that twists into the type of human faces billowing from the chimney – definitely not the way in which he recollects it. I discover an ice crystal resembling Savathun, the Witch Queen, and a struggle desk that includes replicas of Ikora, Zavala, and Crow surrounding it. There are such a lot of callbacks to earlier Future story beats and memorable occasions, some I’d even forgotten about.
The best nostalgia comes from Cayde-6’s reappearance, voiced once more by Nathan Fillion. The beloved character met his demise again in 2018, and whereas his return was confirmed earlier than the discharge of The Ultimate Form, the primary time I see him in-game is overcharged with emotion. Cayde stays quirky, witty, and light-hearted, however he’s acquired a newfound maturity, and a capability to be critical when it issues with out shedding all the things that made me love him within the first place. His relationship with Crow, his assassin, is mending earlier than my eyes and their bromance is endearing but hilarious. Throughout a second within the Wild Card Unique quest, Cayde recommends Crow for his former function because the Hunter Vanguard, and, having been with out one for the previous six years, I discover myself agreeing together with his ideas.
The Ultimate Form’s marketing campaign narrative is horrifyingly lovely. The Witness continues to develop in energy, insistence, and brutality, and the various voices that contribute to its phrases get louder, echoing and booming across the buildings and corridors I run via. We’re on a quest to achieve the Spire, the place the Witness resides, whereas it endeavors to tempt us into changing into one with the Darkness. When our Ghost retorts that it should worry us if it’s attempting to show us to its aspect, the Witness yells, “Silence, you insolent speck!” and I cower in my chair. I’ve by no means been so invested in a Future marketing campaign, and the adrenaline is coursing via me. How will I take down this behemoth?
The thriller behind the veiled statues stays one in all Future 2’s most important and unresolved story arcs. These tall, imposing oddities have cropped up in necessary areas for years, and The Ultimate Form lastly addresses what they signify: the precursor folks – those that created the Witness after the Traveler deserted their civilization. That they had sought an unbreakable being with an unshakeable will, somebody or one thing to guide them and supply a objective.
The Witness is made up of all of these minds joined in Darkness, although some nonetheless disagree with their host’s view of what the ultimate form must be. These are generally known as the Dissenters, and the Witness has labored to exile and entice them inside the statues earlier than finally reintegrating with them.
These statues, because it seems, have been serving to us your complete time. They whisper and scream all through The Ultimate Form’s marketing campaign. Throughout a boss battle, they encourage us to topple the statues and, in doing so, slowly destroy the Witness itself.
The Witch Queen’s Savathun additionally ties up some storylines in The Ultimate Form whereas kicking off new ones. Whereas she has her personal concepts on what to do after the occasions of this enlargement, she reluctantly agrees that we now have the identical finish purpose. Because the Hive goddess of trickery, she hasn’t revealed her subsequent strikes simply but, however one thing is clearly brewing, and given the success of The Witch Queen’s marketing campaign and Savathun’s story, I’m excited to see how she deceives us subsequent.
Ever for the reason that revelation that Hive enemies might wield the Gentle – the factor that provides us all of our powers – I’ve theorized concerning the plausibility of the existence of pleasant Hive Guardians. Enter Luzaku. This likable, by accident witty Hive would normally be our enemy, however in The Ultimate Form she seems to tell us that, truly, her race can dissent towards their broods and carve their very own paths. The Ultimate Form explores the concept of discovering a objective – Cayde isn’t positive what his is now, Crow doesn’t suppose he deserves the place his life is headed, and Luzaku thinks her objective is to battle alongside the Vanguard towards The Witness.
One other theme all through the marketing campaign is coping with loss, which is seen most clearly in Zavala’s journey. A particular point out must go to Keith David, because the legendary Halo voice actor had big boots to fill following the unhappy passing of Lance Reddick, Zavala’s former voice actor. David has executed a incredible job of wrapping up Zalava’s perspective on the Gentle and Darkish saga. His emotive efficiency is all the things the character and Reddick’s reminiscence deserve, and it’s becoming that the method of therapeutic from grief in-game nods to real-world occasions and the folks behind the characters.
After finishing the accessible marketing campaign missions, I head off to rescue misplaced Ghosts from across the Pale Coronary heart and tackle three Unique quests. The primary of those facilities round Savathun and her intentions, setting the scene for attainable future storylines. The second focuses on Cayde and Crow’s heartwarming friendship. An additional Unique quest ramps up the marketing campaign missions to a better issue and introduces new mechanics. Beforehand, Bungie solely elevated the facility degree or added set challenges, so this contemporary spin on endgame content material is a robust addition.
The marketing campaign’s raid, Salvation’s Edge, was launched on June 7, and it’s among the many sport’s finest and most difficult, introducing complicated new mechanics. Skilled gamers and even those that achieved former World First raid race titles in as little as three hours spent as much as 35 hours trying to clear it. The crew that managed it first, Parabellum, did so in just a few seconds wanting 19 hours, triggering an in-game message advising {that a} 12-person exercise had develop into accessible.
As Zavala’s voice punctuates atmospheric music, he says that “moments in the past, one fireteam infiltrated the Witness’s monolith and shattered its maintain on the Traveler’s Gentle.” Abruptly, I’m delighted to see the respect and admiration Bungie has for its most devoted and expert gamers. They’re ceaselessly written into the tip of a decade-long saga.
The brand new exercise, Excision, sees us lastly dealing with off towards the Witness. The battle itself is epic – an enormous battle of all the Vanguard’s allies. These allied Hive forces we theorized about are current, as are the Vanguard, the Eliksni, the Cabal, Savathun herself, and lots of extra acquainted faces from over time. We return to the room stuffed with Dissenters, smashing them to smithereens and weakening the Witness’s defenses.
The one solution to lastly destroy the Witness for good is to take our Ghost and permit the Gentle from the Traveler to stream via it. Following this can be a sequence of cutscenes and a few of Bungie’s most interesting story work. They’re emotional, they’re unpredictable, and so they’re impeccably executed. The conclusion to Cayde’s arc specifically is gorgeous, because it permits him to complete issues on his personal phrases. “Nobody makes my destiny however me,” he claims – or no less than I feel he does. I can’t hear too properly over the sound of my very own sobbing.
In all my years of taking part in video games, I’ve by no means skilled something just like the conclusion of Future 2’s Gentle and Darkish saga. Given its decade-long scope and the character of the grind, it’s comprehensible that some gamers have dropped off, whereas new ones have joined. I hope everybody who holds love for this sequence returns to expertise The Ultimate Form, because it’s Future at its best possible.
After years of foreshadowing, an epic battle that exceeded even the very best expectations, and a conclusion that tastefully ties up the saga whereas hinting at the place we’d go subsequent, Bungie has greater than recovered from the turbulent instances of Lightfall. I’ve loved uncovering the mysteries of the Witness, however I’m glad that its story has come to an finish. Neighborhood sentiment is the very best I’ve ever seen, there’s a renewed ardour and pleasure for the long run, and The Ultimate Form has in the end cemented Future 2 as one of many all-time FPS sport greats. Gratias vobis agimus – thanks, Bungie.
