Even More Destiny

Destiny 2: Forsaken By Salehuddin Husin (GameAxis)

Portrait of Tammy Strobel

Destiny 2: Forsaken By Salehuddin Husin (GameAxis)

My Reading Room

After all the times you stopped evil and saved the universe in the past, the plot of the Forsaken expansion is a much welcome breath of fresh air. Instead of the grandiose scale of past stories, this one is much more intimate and personal; the death of Cayde 6 and the Guardians’ response to it.

I’ve grown to like Cayde 6 throughout the years. He’s not a deep character, but as the sole wisecracking outlet for Destiny 2’s humor, he’s a pretty standout figure in a serious and dour game.

The plot to avenge Cayde 6 is unlike other expansions as you’re almost immediately given a hitlist of targets to take out. These 8 targets are the ones directly responsible for Cayde’s death, and are the key to stopping Uldren Sov, one-time ally and Cayde’s killer.

Uldren and his 8 Barons lead a new faction in Destiny. Calling themselves the Scorn, they’re made up of dead Fallen soldiers, animated by dark magic used by The Fanatic, Uldren’s right hand man. The 8 Barons all have fancy names and personalities, and are ominously introduced through a pretty cool cinematic.

Unfortunately, the hype built up by that cutscene is pretty much lost when you face them as apart from three (The Rider, The Machinist and The Rifleman), most of the fights devolve into a battle of attrition…pretty much like every boss in Destiny.

My Reading Room

Bows are a new weapon type in the game and are pretty generous with their headshots with auto-aim.

CONCLUSION

Underneath the new coat of paint, this IS still Destiny 2.

My Reading Room

However, the three named Barons have incredibly cool battles. The Rider’s battle for example, has you stealing one of the Baron’s bikes before facing her in a vehicular showdown. The Rifleman fight on the other hand is a battle of wits, as you try to dodge sniper fire and take out the Baron’s hard light holograms. Finally, the Machinist fight is pure brute force as it has you piloting a tank for most of it, which is undoubtedly the most fun I had doing the Forsaken campaign missions.

Sadly, for an expansion based on taking down bosses, the final one is a major letdown. There’s no challenge to it, with you simply facing down waves of Taken, while being teleported in and out of the main arena as you whittle down the boss’ health. Frustratingly, you don’t even get to fight Uldren Sov and the aftermath of your final ‘encounter’ with him is infuriatingly vague and inconclusive. Luckily, the plot isn’t the only thing that Forsaken adds.

The biggest and most noticeable addition comes in the form of a new playable location called the Tangled Shore. Another hidden area opens up once you’ve started the postgame content, called the Dreaming City. It’s here where you’ll be able to get another Seed of Light for your class as it drops during one of the Public Events that regularly occur.

The biggest change is definitely the one done to the weapons system. Now, guns are grouped into ammo types instead of weapon types, similar to how it was in the original Destiny. Forsaken also introduces a new weapon type: bows. You get one relatively early on in the campaign and it’s freakishly fun to use.

Weapons also now come with randomized perks, so even copies of the same gun might perform differently depending on which perk its imbued with. The star attraction for hoarders though has to be the new Collections tab. Once you have something in the collection, it’s unlocked for all time. If you need to reacquire it, you can just pay the Collection’s asking price and you’ll get a copy of it in your inventory.

With Forsaken, you can now level up to Level 50, with power levels rising up to a max of 600. As per the norm, you also get some post-game Exotic weapon quests, one of which will get you Cayde’s Ace of Spades handcannon. The hoops you have to jump through are still as annoying as ever though.

Forsaken also now comes with all new Bounties. You can get these from nearly every major NPC in the game, with each NPC specializing in their own bounty types.

The Bounty system was one of the best reasons to keep playing in the original Destiny and the MASSIVE number and types of Bounties you can now undertake in Forsaken in a HUGE step up from the original.

Read more at GAMEAXIS.COM

My Reading Room

A new PVE/PVP mode called Gambit is in the game. Play against an opposing team to collect cores and defeat a Primeval.

AT A GLANCE

DEVELOPER Bungie

PUBLISHER Activision

GENRE First-person shooter

PLATFORM PC, PS4, Xbox One

PLAYERS Single, Multi

My Reading Room

PICTURES ACTIVISION