Future 2 Lightfall promised to be the groundbreaking penultimate storyline in a story developed over practically a decade. However the situation is typically recreation builders make guarantees they will’t hold. Not each enlargement and marketing campaign storyline can change the sport like Forsaken or introduce us to forcing narrative twists like these in The Witch Queen. Nonetheless, Lightfall looks like a big step backwards from the complicated, interwoven threads that when led a complete group to grieve for the dying of Cayde-6 or, much more just lately, shed a tear at Rasputin’s sacrifice.
Maybe there’s some confusion among the many builders as to what Future 2 means to gamers in comparison with what it means to these in cost. The event group sought to ship a futuristic neon metropolis and a Darkness subclass that’s mockingly vivid within the FPS recreation, whereas what may have really satiated gamers is a clearer grasp of the stakes surrounding the Traveler, the Veil, and the way forward for humanity.
Be aware that this evaluate is comparatively early within the gameplay expertise, reflecting a number of hours of marketing campaign content material. There’s lots to discover in Future 2 Lightfall, and we’re nonetheless working our method by way of it. Nonetheless, with a number of hours of the Legendary marketing campaign accomplished, suffice it to say it’s notably underwhelming.
Perhaps it’s intentional {that a} DLC dubbed Lightfall may go away gamers at nighttime. However, in what needs to be a number of the recreation’s most pivotal moments, we’re as an alternative left scratching our heads about what’s occurring.
It’s potential Bungie has a much bigger plan in thoughts and can unravel the Veil’s significance over the subsequent few seasons. However with Lightfall providing a lot promise in what ought to ostensibly be the largest showdown so far, the fight narrative presently looks like it might be resulting in the worst model of “it was a dream all alongside.”
In fact, maybe the forthcoming Future 2 Lightfall raid, named Root of Nightmares, will reply some questions for us. However why conceal a number of the recreation’s greatest content material behind an exercise a minimum of half the playerbase is unlikely ever to see? The marketing campaign is the promoting level for a motive: it ought to make gamers of all backgrounds and ability units really feel invested.
The marketing campaign feels manageable on Legendary problem — besides when it isn’t. After crusing by way of the primary two missions within the Future 2 Lightfall mission checklist, Downfall felt like a chore. Even my strongest builds couldn’t face up to the world that appears to be missing cowl, and even with a Future 2 Downfall mission information, it nonetheless felt tedious.
Bungie actually needed to amp up the problem with Lightfall, however that out of the blue begs the query, who is that this recreation for? At its core, it’s a free recreation supported by microtransactions and DLC content material and designed to enchantment to as broad of an viewers as potential. But when the Legendary marketing campaign rewards exotics that folks of all ability units have paid to have the ability to entry, then doesn’t it really feel like a slight to less-skilled gamers? Or, for instance, the recently-released Future 2 Vexcalibur unique glaive is hidden behind a mission that even seasoned gamers discover troublesome on its regular problem. Gamers can solely acquire the catalysts by finishing it on Legendary problem, which has an influence cap which means less-skilled Guardians can’t merely grind for pinnacles to make it manageable for them. Maybe the thought is to pressure individuals to ask mates and play as fireteams. And that could be okay, if the sport’s promised Wanting For Group options have been launched with Lightfall. However there are literally thousands of Future 2 gamers who merely choose the solo expertise, and never all of them are die-hard gamers. Shouldn’t it’s potential for them to acquire catalysts with out placing themselves by way of torture? And additional, isn’t there an argument that weaker gamers are those who want these catalysts essentially the most?
Finally, that is merely a query of stability as the conventional marketing campaign problem felt simpler than most low-level, pre-Lightfall Vanguard strikes. Perhaps as an alternative of specializing in an pointless rating system, the sport may as an alternative provide higher signifiers as to issues akin to total injury improve when combining sure mods and Fragments. Or, it may discover another indicator to let gamers know why they’re getting one-shot by Tormenters or why weapons gamers have relied on for years appear out of the blue nerfed out of existence. In fact, it’s all the time been my perspective {that a} participant shouldn’t must go exterior of a recreation to learn to play it. However Bungie appears hell-bent on including layer upon layer of complexity when it may behove the builders to easily handle the fundamentals.
It’s simple to see why Lightfall has gamers divided. Take Nimbus, for instance. The sport attracts on the stakes of the Darkness versus the Gentle to carry us to the Metropolis of Neomuna, the place we meet a friendly-but-goofy ally harking back to a personality in a basic episode of The Simpsons, by which the favored Itchy and Scratchy TV present introduces a canine named Poochie to bolster rankings. Whereas Nimbus provides a playful voice to the sport, they really feel doomed to affix the solid of characters who play nothing greater than a cameo function in a recreation dedicated to counting on new characters as lazy plot units.
Maybe a part of the problem with that is within the expectations. The advertising and marketing supplies surrounding Lightfall constructed it as much as inform the story that will lead us to the house recreation’s closing chapter. However Bungie ought to know one factor: if it desires to maintain its gamers completely satisfied, it ought to by no means make a promise it could actually’t hold.
There are some highlights. The Future 2 Strand subclass is enjoyable to make use of. For what Bungie could also be missing in storytelling, it seems to have balanced in its personal method with a novel subclass that introduces a completely new playstyle into the sport.
There are a lot of new exotics, quests, missions, and a forthcoming all-new raid. There are weekly story missions and actions, and, whereas PvP may nonetheless use new maps and Gambit stays fully untouched, Future 2 Iron Banner guarantees to return 3 times a season. All of that is to counsel that, for not precisely nailing the storyline content material, the group continues to be giving gamers a ton of content material for the sport’s price ticket, although even that seems to be inflating in each iteration.
Additional, the sport’s quality-of-life enhancements are useful. Options akin to Loadouts are extraordinarily helpful, and whereas I don’t discover Guardian Ranks significantly attention-grabbing, the UI that helps them and makes it simple to finish Guardian Ranks-related challenges is clear and seamless. Commendations seem to be an interesting option to acknowledge teammates however are little greater than ineffective in follow. Maybe the very best one I received was after I loaded into an exercise close to its finish and, after having executed completely nothing earlier than the mission ended, my teammates jokingly deemed me enjoyable to play with.
And, in the case of unique weapons, Lightfall doesn’t disappoint. The Strand-based Future 2 Ultimate Warning unique sidearm and the Void-based Deterministic Chaos unique machine gun are each incredible weapons which might be enjoyable to make use of. Whereas the questline to earn the Future 2 Winterbite unique glaive has some time-gating when it comes to when you may full a selected exercise, which is all the time absolute B.S. designed to pressure gamers to log in on totally different days to finish targets that shouldn’t be tied to day by day resets, it nonetheless feels well worth the chase.
We’ll proceed to replace this evaluate as we undergo the favored multiplayer recreation and discover all the things Lightfall gives. Till then, try our Future 2 season 20 overview and Future 2 Lightfall exotics checklist to see what’s new.