Destiny 2: Beyond Light Reviews
It is my sincerest of hopes that this shaky start is just an anomaly for Bungie’s new direction, but the game’s state ever since Shadowkeep also leads me to believe otherwise
Beyond Light oozes potential and I can't wait to see how Bungie develops the narrative it has started. But, by cutting so much legacy content out at once and failing to replace it, the endgame feels shallow and is already starting to feel a little too repetitive for my liking. Bungie also has brought some balancing issues into the game's PVP modes with the new Stasis subclasses, which need addressing sooner rather than later.
A stunning new world and powerful abilities await in Destiny 2: Beyond Light, but all the good is outweighed by the amount of content Bungie threw in the Destiny Content Vault, forcing future Seasons to pick up the slack.
Prepare to wield the darkness in the latest Destiny 2 Expansion, Beyond Light where you must the Fallen Kell Eramis for control over the moon of Europa. This fight will take you through some revelations about your relationship with the darkness and the horrid experiments that Clovis Bray have performed on the moon.
Under normal circumstances, Beyond Light would have been a somewhat decent expansion with little new content, despite an engaging plot. However, the vaulting of much of the old content – most of which paid in hard cash by the users – represents an unforgivable sin since all the new activities and equipment of Beyond Light fail to come close to the amount of content removed. If Bungie continues to walk on this self-destructive path, it risks to irreparably compromise the future of Destiny 2.
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Destiny 2: Beyond Light is a slimmer offering than fans might have hoped for thanks to its disappointing campaign, but there’s still enough intrigue beneath Europa’s surface to warrant a return to orbit. The new stasis subclasses freshen up years-old experiences and make parts of the game feel new again, even if the honeymoon feeling melts away in a few weeks.
Bungie has taken a step forward with this expansion. They are clearly on the right path with this stone-cold offering that ironically will warm up even the most jaded of Destiny fans.
With a lengthier campaign and more questlines, “Beyond Light” offers plenty of new PvE activities and Stasis shakes up Guardians’ play styles in both PvP and PvE. Europa itself is a beautiful and elaborate map and it’s great to be able to explore the Cosmodrome again. However, the removal of a lot of the base content and the lack of new PvP content is upsetting. Although we still have some content that’s planned to be released in the future, like a new Raid, Bungie still has a lot to make up for.
Although Europa itself is harsh and beautiful at the same time, Destiny 2: Beyond Light suffers from a litany of issues. The unnecessary back-and-forth to do missions on Europa, a weak structure for its campaign, and the sunsetted weapons with barely anything decent that replaced them all combine to lead to disappointments. Worse, although Stasis is a neat subclass to use in PvE, it doesn't seem viable for high-end content and it's extremely annoying in PvP. There's a good chance that Bungie adds more in succeeding weeks, but this has been a rough start for a once-promising expansion.
Beyond Light has an excellent campaign and Europa is an awesome patrol zone, but the lack of new loot and the terrible Stasis balancing make the expansion difficult to recommend.
My advice? Wait to see how the next-gen upgrade of Destiny 2 shakes out if you're either on the fence about returning, or jumping in for the first time. Come December 8, it should be a drastically different experience, as the lessened load times and sharper visuals (and performance) should help smooth over some of Destiny 2's shortcomings. It still has many.