This week’s launch of Future 2: Lightfall noticed an enormous inflow of gamers on Steam and console to take a look at Bungie’s subsequent growth for its on-line shooter. Because the penultimate story for its Gentle and Darkness saga, paving the best way for The Closing Form in 2024, Lightfall shifts the bigger plot in direction of the concluding chapters of its 10 yr story whereas revising its gameplay programs. Nonetheless, the general reception from the neighborhood appears to inform a distinct form of story.
Following the February 28 launch, gamers on social media, the Future 2 reddit, and on YouTube have been actively voicing considerations with the present state of the growth. Whereas the Future neighborhood has not been shy about sharing opinions, there have been a wave of criticism in regards to the core narrative of Lightfall, the brand new setting of Neomuna, the advanced strategies to unlock Strand, and the way troublesome it’s for brand new and returning gamers to return to a modified expertise.
At present, Steam critiques on Lightfall are at a “largely detrimental” ranking, with gamers disapproving of the sport’s narrative and its total method to a yearly reset. For now, we are going to break down some key takeaways from the neighborhood and what Bungie has addressed in its latest This Week At Bungie weblog put up.
The Major Narrative
A lot has occurred within the universe of Future since its debut in 2014. Following massive conflicts with the Fallen, Hive, Vex, Cabal, and Taken factions, the Guardians have now cast alliances with splinter teams from their opposing armies, and have even embraced some restricted powers from the darkness. All of the whereas, a brand new risk within the type of The Witness, an emissary of The Darkness and the present massive unhealthy of Future 2, who seeks the Traveler for their very own nefarious functions.
On the finish of the Season of the Seraph – a now-retired occasion that came about all through December and to late February – we noticed The Witness lead their Black Fleet to Earth to seize the Traveler. With The Traveler having left to stay simply exterior of orbit, the Guardians and their allies made a stand in opposition to the Black Fleet, resulting in the occasions of Lightfall. On this present growth, the Guardians and allied forces journey to Neomuna, a hidden metropolis on Neptune that The Shadow Legion has invaded. Led by Emperor Calus, a returning D2 12 months 1 villain who’s now a servant to The Witness, he seeks to achieve a hidden energy supply within the hidden metropolis.
I’m sufficiently old to recollect when The Veil was a brand new enemy race that was gonna come out of the pyramid ships https://t.co/SFtzOBe8Jg
— Paul Tassi (@PaulTassi) March 2, 2023
To start with, Neomuna and its new characters, The Cloud Striders, confirmed promise. Nonetheless, the overall reception chilled considerably as soon as the size of the marketing campaign and its story was revealed to be smaller than anticipated. Moreso, the sense of urgency proven within the opening act of the marketing campaign was muted as soon as gamers bought settled in Neomuna and commenced interacting with characters like Nimbus, the comedian aid of the story. This has led some gamers to view the marketing campaign as much less severe than it was set as much as be, coming off extra in keeping with earlier expansions.
Furthermore, this growth’s plot particulars and lore have left followers confused – a lot in order that well-liked Future 2 content material creators equivalent to Paul Tassi and D2 lore skilled My Identify is Byf have launched movies explaining why the marketing campaign’s light-hearted tone undermines the bigger story and the way most of the important plot particulars and occasions are launched with out a lot clarification. One level of competition was the inclusion of Strand within the plot, and the way the sport doesn’t supply a lot clarification on its origins.
“Strand’s complete insertion into the narrative simply doesn’t assist, it feels as if obstacles have solely been put in place to make use of this new subclass, and that may be a enormous detriment to the bigger [invasion] plot as a result of [Strand] is what Lightfall finally ends up being all about,” mentioned well-liked D2 lore content material creator My Identify Is Byf. “As a seasonal storyline, this is able to have been superb, however as an growth story when there’s a literal assault on the Traveler occurring – I imply, come on? [Strand] seems out of nowhere and it’s not defined in any respect within the story.”
One of many extra frequent complaints among the many neighborhood focuses on particulars concerning “The Veil,” a mysterious energy that the sport presents as a long-established element however has solely been lately mentioned. This shift within the plot has additionally led to memes and on-line jokes, which have turn out to be a daily sight on Future 2’s Reddit.
I’m the quote-on-quote “lore daddy” of Future 2, and I can’t let you know what the Veil is as a result of I do not know
Whereas Bungie is, after all, tight-lipped on particulars concerning The Veil and different narratives, builders have expressed that Lightfall’s story will progress within the weeks forward and that the present Season of Defiance occasion launched alongside Lightfall will even add extra vital particulars to the story.
Buying Strand
One of many stand-out additions of Lightfall is the Strand subclass, the primary new playstyle for the reason that Past Gentle growth in 2020. The brand new subclass permits gamers to govern a inexperienced weave of vitality to grapple throughout areas, bind enemies, summon inexperienced vitality beings to deal additional injury. Thus far, the category has been well-received, and there is been a bunch of stunt movies showcasing how far gamers can take the grappling.
Grapples feeling good!#MOTW #Destiny2 @DestinyTheGame @Bungie pic.twitter.com/Qfla8VK3x7
— Senseileon (@Senseileon_) March 1, 2023
Nonetheless, the neighborhood’s difficulty with Strand is that it feels minimal at launch. Very like Stasis from Past Gentle, Strand’s development and energy progress was supposed to be tied to weekly challenges, and future story beats added in updates. Basically, which means that development was tied to a set schedule dictated by Bungie’s launch of latest content material. This led to considerations that the brand new class will probably be restricted for an prolonged interval – considerations that have been sharpened by gamers unlocking Strand for everlasting use after the marketing campaign and discovering that the signature grapple skill had a prolonged cooldown, and that different unlocks needed to be bought with massive quantities of sources that might take time to earn. That was on high of being fairly weak, dampening the sensation of wielding a chaotic and unknown component.
In an try to repair this difficulty, Bungie introduced a brand new replace rolling out on March 2 that might permit gamers who’ve the subclass to unlock all obtainable fragments. This new replace will unlock Strand correct, giving gamers nonetheless making their method by the ability grind new choices and alternatives to experiment with the sport.
“We’ve determined to launch a dwell replace that may unlock the power to earn the complete suite of Strand Fragments for all gamers,” Bungie wrote. “Whereas these extra Fragments will probably be class-specific to unlock and also you’ll want Strand meditations to amass them, this needs to be a good way for everybody to expertise extra of what Strand has to supply earlier than we head into subsequent week’s raid.”
A Refocused Gear System
Together with the brand new story content material and placement, Future 2 additionally added a revised gear system and useful resource administration. Beforehand, mods for armor items have been tuned to particular parts and have been additionally tied to unlocks from Seasonal Actions – with new ones resetting progress. If gamers wished to take part in sure occasions, some artifact mods – equivalent to anti-barrier, overpowered, and different fight buffs – have been important for fulfillment and required gamers to maintain them attuned to their gear. With the brand new growth, construct crafting has been revised, and plenty of seasonal artifact mods are actually added perks to a personality that don’t have to be set in place.
Whereas the scope of construct crafting has expanded, the Future 2 neighborhood has expressed considerations about the very best choices for outfitting characters in mild of most of the revised mods. Moreover, this has additionally made some favourite neighborhood builds unusable, requiring added effort to tune character loadouts. Added to that is the brand new armor cost system, a revised tackle the phased-out elemental wells mods now designed to spice up your character’s protection. A brand new system brings again an underlying difficulty of guaranteeing that you’ve got particular game-specific buffs added in your character or else take care of overly troublesome encounters.
In one other video, populer Future 2 content material creator Datto chimed in along with his ideas on modding. Although he acknowledged he nonetheless wants extra time with it, he remained optimistic on the system than most different followers Nonetheless, he does categorical considerations it might fall into slender constructing tendencies amongst the neighborhood.
“There’s a very good basis to construct on [mods] now, and I hope that Bungie plans on introducing extra because the yr goes on. However people who did perceive the system prior to now are actually left with a much less fascinating mod and buildcrafting world. The equal of these staple mods are actually left within the seasonal unlocks, and my fear is that buildcrafting is simply going to fully encompass what’s within the artifact mod and never that rather more.”
At present, Bungie has not addressed considerations with the mod programs but, however the studio did add an replace to tune recurring points with particular buffs from the sport. Thus far, it’s nonetheless early, and the neighborhood continues to be experimenting with the capabilities of the brand new class updates and mods. Within the weeks forward, we could have a clearer image of how the brand new armor mod system has dealt with itself.
The Street Forward
Whereas Lightfall’s launch has been comparatively easy on a technical stage, the growth content material has turn out to be the topic of scrutiny from the Future 2 neighborhood. Outdoors of those bigger points, the response from the neighborhood concerning the yearly refresh has been constructive. Nonetheless, given the character of Future 2 as a live-service recreation that may evolve over the following yr forward of The Closing Form’s launch, there’s nonetheless loads of room for enchancment.
It’s nonetheless early to say how Lightfall will fare amongst Future 2 expansions after just a few days. Nonetheless, with the upcoming launch of The Root of Nightmares raid on March 10, we are going to start to see the place Lightfall’s story and its implications on the bigger plot of Future 2 will go from right here.
Sustain with IGN for extra particulars on the present state of Future 2: Lightfall, together with our upcoming evaluate of the sport.
Alessandro Fillari is a contract author at IGN.
