Destiny 2: Lightfall Reviews
A disappointing campaign, and a sandbox rework that shows promise, but feels like it's still some major balance patches away from leaving the game in a good place.
A couple exciting additions like Strand don't stop Destiny 2: Lightfall from feeling like a disappointing step backwards.
Lightfall needs Strand to be good, and the new raid coming March 10 had better be a banger.
I may have found the campaign uninspired and its legendary difficulty a slog characterized by bullet-spongey foes. But an expansion to a game this big is more than just its opening story. Lightfall sets up some strong possibilities – narratively and in the gameplay sphere – for a rewarding year of adventure ahead. Despite some frustrations, Destiny 2 continues to make strides in catering to a diverse player base characterized by disparate desires. Lightfall is hit and miss, but any stumbles shouldn’t be enough to derail players’ enthusiasm for continued adventure or the excitement of seeing the epic conclude over the next year.
Lightfall's new gameplay mechanics and evolved systems position it as a turning point for Destiny 2, but the expansion is let down by the poor narrative of its campaign.
Considering that Lightfall’s story ends with many open-ended questions and is just the beginning of a year’s worth of narrative and gameplay content, which demands a level of time investment that many new players might balk at, it’s difficult to know whether the gameplay and the artwork — polished as they are — will be enough to draw in the uninitiated. Are they willing, once the campaign wraps up, to begin grinding, to devote themselves to this world that mostly ignores them, choosing to commemorate its “Veterans” (the title awarded to players who started playing six years ago) instead? There’s certainly something impressive about a game like Destiny 2, which has a history of its own, but also one that dates back to past franchises. But it leaves one wondering if there’s space at all for those who have no relationship with that history — who approach the game as visitors, witnessing just a sliver of what must feel like a lifetime of memories.
The future is still bright for Destiny 2. We just have to get there.
Strand is fabulous, some of the campaign missions are truly masterful, and the game remains genuinely fun, but these can’t offset Destiny 2: Lightfall’s shortcomings. Destiny 2: Lightfall is just another filler expansion on the pathway to the final showdown.
Lightfall does less with Destiny 2 in a narrative sense than previous expansions, but improves the quality of life considerably.
Destiny 2: Lightfall offers an action-packed campaign that feels more like a filler story than an essential narrative. It also presents extremely well-designed levels, enemies, and combat loops, as well as several overhauls and improvements to the game's core systems. DualShockers was provided with a copy of the game for review purposes.
Destiny 2: Lightfall is an expansion with two opposing aspects, that can be seen as the mirror image of the previous The Witch Queen. Weak in narrative content, it shows its best in perfecting the gaming experience, understood as that set of tools to fully enjoy the potential of our guardians. The hope now is that Bungie will put an extra effort into delivering Seasons full of content and capable of keeping the attention high towards the end of a saga a bit… paracausal.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Destiny 2 is still one of the best feeling games to play, but compared to the inventive, personal story told in The Witch Queen, Lightfall is dull and totally inconsequential. What a disappointment.
Even when you have the game with the best gunplay on the market, it does not always hit the target: Eclipse is one of the weakest expansions of Destiny 2, especially when it comes to campaign. But, like the Guardians, Bungie has a chance here to stand up and prove that they are capable of getting it right again. Like so many other times.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Solid and definitely has an audience. There could be some hard-to-ignore faults, but the experience is fun.
Destiny 2 Lightfall successfully expands upon and upgrades an already fantastic game. With Neomuna, Strand, and the numerous quality of life additions, the only big area Lightfall falters is the story. And while Lightfall's missions are really fun and well-designed, writing excluded, the overall story's biggest problems are its lack of exposition and the fact that it's just the wrong story.
Between its horrible story, subpar post-campaign quests, and lackluster raid, Destiny 2's Lightfall expansion is a massive step backward for Bungie's live service shooter. There is some good here — Strand is fantastic, and most of the new gear is strong, too — but overall, Lightfall will leave most dissatisfied.
Lightfall as a whole package falls short of the standard set by The Witch Queen last year. The story is shaky and tangential, and the gameplay changes are few and far between outside of the underwhelming Strand powers. Neomuna isn’t nearly as memorable, and difficulty changes make it more challenging to engage with Destiny’s bread and butter content. Thankfully, overall quality of life improvements and the rock solid bones of the gameplay save the package as a whole. If you’re after more Destiny 2, Lightfall is certainly that, but as the most expensive expansion yet ($100 USD with the annual pass), I expected to have my hair blown back a bit more.
After The Witch Queen, Lightfall is a step back for Destiny 2, both story-wise and in terms of its gameplay mechanics.
Review in Italian | Read full review
There is so much we could still cover with this latest expansion, like Buildcrafting 2.0 and the new Guardian Ranks system, both of which aim to streamline the Destiny experience. However, at its core Lightfall is all about its story, setting, and gameplay changes. The campaign and setting largely let us down, with the whole thing feeling like the middle child of the Witch Queen, Ligthtfall, and Final Shape trilogy. However, the vigorous excitement that Destiny 2's brilliant gameplay elicits greatly elevates the overall Lightfall experience, with some stellar enhancements thanks to Strand subclasses and grapples. It's irritating to be left in narrative limbo for yet another year, but you'll still struggle to find a space shooter that is this much fun.