 So I've been busy with games, playing a few old favorites while also working through some games I'd had my eye on and planned to maybe write about. But during all that I've also, like always, still been playing Destiny 2. Now Year 2 of Destiny 2 was mostly a huge success. With the launch of Forsaken, Destiny 2 finally moved not only beyond Destiny 1, but really became the game that most players had always hoped it would be. Destiny systems were perfected, story and lore were improved to varying degrees, and there was a large amount of high quality content implemented. During that time, there was the huge revelation that Bungie and Activision had severed their relationship making Bungie a self-publishing AAA studio. This got players excited and also gave Bungie a nice little buffer around the Eververse store that allowed them to start to monetize way more aggressively, far more aggressively than they had even under Activision. Well, I have now played a ton of Shadowkeep and I have some opinions. Probably some fairly unpopular opinions, but we're going to break this up into a few sections. Shadowkeep's campaign, its seasonal activities, Armor 2.0, and the Eververse store. And let me preface all of this with the following disclaimer. Destiny 2 is still in a good place. The game is wide, gameplay is excellent, aside from a lack of difficulty in many places, and overall, it's just a great game. There, Shadowkeep, after the logo. Disappointingly decent. I'm going to start with the two parts that I think most players will perhaps disagree with, and that's because this is all a matter of expectations. Shadowkeep, as an expansion, was acknowledged as being smaller than forsaken. This is understandable and in keeping with the same cycle that we had in Destiny 1. Rise of Iron had lots of great things, including a fantastic raid, but it was considerably smaller in scope and had a much less fleshed out story than the Taken King. While I acknowledge that, I think it's also important to recall that Shadowkeep cost the same amount as Forsaken, and so I think it is absolutely fair to compare them on a value scale. And to be clear before we get going, I'm not talking about the free-to-play value of Destiny 2. What players get for free in D2's new model is absurdly good value. You get just a mountain of extremely high-quality content, as well as one of the most mechanically satisfying shooters ever made. We are only looking at Shadowkeep here, and then the campaign, not New Light. And on that front, I mean, Shadowkeep has several really great moments, both visually and in its gameplay, but overall it just kind of disappoints. First of all, the narrative of the campaign is nearly non-existent. It functions mainly as a prelude, which is like the fifth time that Destiny's had a campaign that only serves to be a prelude to another campaign that's coming up. Remember those ominous black triangles we saw over two years ago, at the end of the launch campaign? And then we saw them again briefly in Mara Sov's Throne World? Well, early in Shadowkeep, you're treated to one of the campaign's only really affecting moments when you come around the corner and are confronted with this. It's impossible not to think, holy crap, are we finally going to get this story? Well, sadly, the answer is no. The entire campaign of Shadowkeep can be summed up as follows. There's a pyramid ship on the moon, it spawns old bosses, you kill those bosses, then the pyramid talks to you for a second, then it's over. There is zero narrative progression. It is almost amazing just how bad Bungie is at telling a story at this point, and I can only continue to wish they would take the ideas and stories in the grimoire and put those literally into the game. Certainly, the campaign hints at some really cool stuff, it hints at a broader and interesting story, but when we look back at five years of Destiny storytelling, I'm not sure why we should trust that it'll be all that interesting when it's actually told by Bungie. I don't think anyone can credibly argue that what's here is good storytelling. It's not hilariously catastrophically awful, it's just low effort and par for the course, takes no chances at all. And again, you cannot tell a good story if you take no chances. And unlike in every other release thus far on Destiny, there's nothing else. Shadowkeep has zero adventures. Instead, it has replayable nightmare hunts which are just below average. They're basically half strikes with almost no story and very uninteresting gameplay mechanics. Destiny 2 and its expansions had some of its very best campaign storytelling in its adventures. Most of which were extremely underrated because Bungie so botched its progression and reward system, there was no reason to play half of them. That's simply not here. Now I understand trying different things and I understand a desire to make the dev time devoted to adventures be used on something that can be better used for continuing player engagement. But nightmare hunts are simply very weak narratively and gameplay wise. They're a disappointment, not bad, just not really very good. Eris Morn is used poorly. We learn nothing about her. We don't learn why she was there in the first place, we don't learn what she was doing, how she caused all this, what she believes, who she is. Bungie is lucky that they have great animators, artists, and voice actors because the people doing the writing have contributed almost nothing to the fleshing out of these characters. Whether it's Cade 6 or Eris Morn, what we know of her is almost entirely gleaned from art design and voice acting. It's just another example of a strange refusal to ask anything about these characters. When you write a fictional character, and I say that as someone who has written many fictional characters, you need to ask yourself questions. Who is this person? What do they want? What do they fear? Where are they going? If Bungie has done this, they aren't doing it very well. We get a character and a campaign that do almost nothing to further our understanding of the universe or the ongoing narrative. Now Bungie has talked a lot about moving the story forward throughout this year, but if so they have gotten off to a very poor start. This expansion, and I'm not talking about the lore which is again excellent, but the expansion story contains perhaps 45 seconds of story? The narrative drive of the expansion can simply be explained in 45 seconds because nothing happens to nobody for no reason. A huge part of storytelling in any visual medium is setting, and as usual on that front Bungie has succeeded. The moon is a really good place base with a few major problems like public events or rare and the new vex events doesn't show up on the map for some impossible to understand reason, but anyway it's a well designed map that changes the original design enough to feel new. It looks great, the atmosphere is great, and while it lacks the secrets and kind of the sense of dread and wonder that the dreadnought had or the awoken home from Forsaken, it's still a well designed map. Still it feels hollow and it is empty. I have a feeling that this ties into serious instancing issues, but holy crap there's just like nobody on the moon. All the other planets are still full, but the moon is utterly empty, it's annoying. Either way, the entirety of the campaign on the moon is very very short, maybe four or five missions. A few spectacularly good loss sectors, which these are really great loss sectors, they should all be this awesome, and a couple of strikes. It will be done with all of this shockingly fast, it's not even 20% the size of Forsaken. It feels significantly shorter than Rise of Iron, like half the size of Rise of Iron. It is much closer in scale to Warmind with a larger map than any of the other large expansions in the franchise. I'm already hearing people typing in the comments, well that's because a large part of the package is tied up in seasonal events and changes to progression and gear. Well, aside from the fact that people who pay nothing get all of the progression and gear changes, there are problems with those systems as well. Seasonal content Alright, look, I get it. Not everything has released on this front yet. And I haven't done the raid yet, I'm doing it this week, but check it out. I am positive the raid is awesome, because Destiny's Raids range from the best ever co-op content to amazingly best in class co-op gameplay. Destiny Raids are amazing. They are the best co-op content ever on a console, and even in the PC space there is very little like it outside of hardcore progression raiding in WoW. But aside from the raid, which should be awesome and always is awesome, seriously, the three raids from Forsaken are fantastic, each one is just perfect. But other than that, there's just not all that much here. The new Vex offensive event is decidedly mediocre. I mean, it's fine, I guess? It's just not really all that good. Last season had the Menagerie which was a really great match made activity for the most part. Outside of Heroic which wasn't match made for no reason at all, but we'll get back to that. Anyway, it was something that finally introduced raid mechanics to the general player base. It was diverse, interesting, fun, and surprisingly challenging actually. Outside of the fact that you could not fail, which was a crazy, crazy design decision, but we'll leave that out too. Warmind had escalation protocol which was really great in its own way. Vex offensive, this will be a theme here. Is it bad? It's just really average. Sort of low effort outside of its environmental art. Waves of Vex spawn, you shoot the Vex, then there's a big Vex, you shoot that Vex until it dies, and then you're done. A heroic version of Nightmare Hunts and Vex offensive will be good because these activities are way too easy, and are therefore kinda boring. But even if they're harder, these two modes are just kinda boring. I'm already basically done with them. The new Nightfall system is fairly fun. It makes them difficult enough to feel like you're not on autopilot, and it finally at least has some matchmaking on the lower levels. Though again, for some absolutely asinine, pointless reason, the higher tiers do not have it. Either way, at least they have begun to address this issue, but even there, the Nightfall or deal is one strike on repeat. The seasonal content added simply is not all that good. It's not garbage, it's just kinda average, and feels, again, fairly low effort. There's just not enough mechanically here, especially after the triumph that was the Menagerie. PvP Bungie rejiggered their matchmaking for Shadowkeep, and for the first time I played some comp here. And I did shockingly well, like I went 15-4 in 19 matches. Beyond that, matches feel like I'm actually playing people near my skill level, which is awesome. Destiny 2's PvP isn't a pretty nice spot, aside from being flooded with heavy ammo all the time, which is just awful. I'm not sure why Bungie insists on so much heavy ammo being in every match, but it is what it is. If you liked the Crucible, a solo comp queue has improved it. If you didn't, a heavier emphasis on skill-based matchmaking, meaning like more than none, has made most modes more welcoming. As a game ages, its PvP becomes more and more hostile to newcomers. Go play Titanfall 2, or Counter-Strike Go for the first time today. You will not have fun, I promise you. Destiny 2 was rapidly approaching this cliff, as the only people left playing PvP were people who had played hundreds and hundreds of hours of it and had gotten very, very good at Destiny's very specific pace of play. For the first time in D2's history, I have been playing a lot of Crucible, and I've been enjoying it as much as a person like me possibly can. I'm basically incapable of enjoying anything that I lose. It's a crutch I bear, I understand, but being matched against similar skill players has made it at least bearable. And finally, switching over to the mouse and keyboard full-time, I will admit that's probably a part of it. Armor Failed Point O Alright, perhaps the biggest focus of Shadowkeep's marketing was the move to Armor 2.0. Some of the problems with this system will be addressed in the Eververse Store section. But even leaving aside those issues, Armor 2.0 is a failed system that fails to fix any of the problems it was nominally created to address. Build Diversity, Build Freedom, Cosmetic Customization. Those are the three areas that Armor 2.0 was meant to improve, and it improves precisely zero of them. Let's start with Build Diversity and Freedom. During the run-up to Shadowkeep, Bungie kept talking about playing the way we want to play, to quote them, building your perfect monster-killing guardian. So imagine my surprise that Armor 2.0 is, undoubtedly, and literally, more restrictive and offers less Build Diversity than the system it replaced. Listen, Destiny needed to improve its armor system. It has always been half of a loot game that should have mattered but did not. They also needed to improve the RPG aspects of the game, but they've gone about this all wrong with Armor 2.0. Here's something that got me excited, okay? Look at this. Bungie has been very, very, very careful about subordinating its RPG aspects to its FPS aspects. And that's a smart call when you have the best FPS mechanics in the business. Still, the game is an RPG down under its shooty bang bang, and one of the huge disappointments with D2 at launch was rather than carefully expand its RPG systems, Bungie actually just removed all of them. Armor perks were gone so that armor could be sold in the Eververse without being queues to pay to win. Stats that affected cooldowns were switched out for imperceptible armor recovery and mobility ratings. Like seriously, mobility did not even affect your sprint speed. With Shadowkeep, Bungie rightly started bringing back some RPG to Destiny 2, and they did that not by reimagining the stats in the game, but by basically just combining the two games together. All armor pieces randomly roll with six different stats now, the three stats from Destiny 2 and the three stats from Destiny 1. The total number of stat points that come on a piece of gear is random, and the appearance is random. So right here off the bat, you've got heavy, insane amounts of RNG. You have doubled the stats that players are looking for and brought a tier system back. That is pushing it pretty far, but it could be fine as long as the system feels like it really affects your gameplay. It does not. Destiny 2 heavily nerfed all cooldowns with Shadowkeep. So rather than feel like you're creating something new, the system feels like grinding back to where you were. It is very possibly the correct choice in the long run, but right now, it feels bad, man. While I am so thankful that the actual cooldown timers are now written on my fucking stat page, it's insane it took 5 years to get there, but I'm kind of annoyed that the base super cooldown is 5 minutes. To feel like you're playing Destiny, you have got to hyper-specialize in super generation. And frankly, with super as being the most powerful thing in the game, that seems like the clear best build. The more you get your super, the better, and almost all modes outside of raids where their use is actually tactical and strategic in a way that it simply is not anywhere else outside of the hardest PvE encounters. Now while all that is debatable, what I just said, maybe you think there are a million great builds, that's not actually the main problem with this system. The problem with Armor 2.0 is two-fold. Well threefold, but the other fold is folded into the next section. First off, the cost to upgrade is high, like really high. And Bungie has quintupled down on currency bloat. There are like 700 currencies and upgrade materials in Destiny 2. So many that your inventory page is constantly filling up. It is needlessly complex. When a far better system had already existed in Destiny 1, upgrading gear should be tied directly to completing gameplay tasks. Have one single material that you earn from doing harder difficulty encounters. So if I want to take my armor from 1 energy to 6, I'd have to do a 5 energy upgrade activity like a nightfall or a raid or whatever, some comp matches. As it stands, it is painfully slow to actually be able to make builds. And even slotting in mods can be expensive, from 500 to 5000 glimmer just to put a mod on or switch it out. Which just straight up dis-incentivizes playing around with the system. I don't see the harm in as much freedom as possible. I don't see the harm in being able to experiment. Why would I ever try a new build when it might cost literally 25,000 glimmer for something if I'm going to need to pay 25,000 glimmer to change it back if I don't like it? So in practice what does this mean? It means players are going to apply the mods that they are already used to using because they know that's an investment that will not be wasted. Don't get me wrong, glimmer is everywhere. But still, 25,000 glimmer is quite a bit of playtime. An hour or more probably. When you add in the insanely high cost to upgrade the energy required to even slot mods in the first place, upgrading even one piece of gear is ridiculously expensive. And you could do all that only to have a piece dropped with a higher total stats literally 30 seconds later. Once again, high costs tend to mean that players will not engage with a system until they are sure that their spending will pay off. It is a puzzling design decision and another in a long line of decisions that seems to confuse not wanting to engage with a system because it's time prohibitive with meaningful build decisions. These are different things, man, they're not the same thing. And the biggest problem is one that became immediately clear as soon as this system was unveiled. One that players at once spotted as a big problem. One they told bungee would be a big problem and which is, yep, a big problem. You see, the whole point of this system according to bungee was encouraging build variety, character depth and choice. But armor 2.0 doesn't let you slot any mod anywhere. Instead, armor has an elemental affinity that literally does only one thing. The affinity system does not have an actual gameplay role. It doesn't mean you can choose to focus on void affinity to have a different experience. It just splits the mods randomly amongst three types. So, did you like to run Hand Ganon, SMG and LMG and had ammo and reload perks for those three weapons before? Well, fuck you, now you can't. This system did nothing but make builds that were previously possible impossible. It took things away. And even if your particular build still is possible, well, you'll not only need to find a piece of armor you like, you'll also have to have it roll with the stat count you want. And not only roll with that stat count, they'll have to be distributed in the way you need. On top of that, you now also have a two in three chance that even if all of those things line up, the piece can be totally useless because it's the wrong color. It adds a mountain of pointless RNG on top of another mountain of RNG. It is objectively a more restrictive system than the one it replaced. It makes impossible dozens of previously useful builds and extends grind out to world of warcraft rare raid mount farming levels of bullshit. Again, just to be clear, Bungie said over and over that the purpose of these changes was to drive player choice, to make the RPG side of Destiny matter. Even if these systems need to be simple, so as not to interfere with the game's bread and butter badass shooting, they still need to feel like they aren't hostile to the player. It is simply impossible to look at this system and see any goal other than one. It is beyond obvious that the elemental affinity system is just a massive grind increase. And that's not necessarily a terrible thing. I love to grind for a perfect stat roll, man. But I don't want to grind for an arbitrary color on that stat roll. It is just fucking terrible and it needs to be removed, period. There's not one single argument in its favor. None. Even the crazy people defending it are only saying, oh, it's not that bad, dude. Not that bad is not an argument for a system. It's a thing you say when you break your nose falling down the stairs, but at least your leg didn't break too. There is no actual benefit to the player or build to have this system. It is pointless and shitty and an entirely predictable issue that was pointed out to players months before release. It has to change. And the cherry on top of all of this is that exotic armor also rolls with an affinity. So you can literally get an exotic piece that is used to buff sidearms that has a 67% chance of not being able to accept sidearm mods. It is insane. The exotic issue is so toxically awful it needs to be hot-fixed. It is mind-blowing that it even got shipped. As for the system itself, it's not good enough. Plain and simple. Try again. Microtransactions. Alright, we're wrapping up here, but we have to talk about Eververse. I am not a microtransaction activist. As I have aged, I've come to understand that businesses need to make money. I do not begrudge Bungie making money as long as it doesn't feel predatory and the current store, while overpriced, isn't loaded up with pay-to-win or character unlocks or loot boxes. It's fine. What's not fine is that ALL of the cosmetics are now basically locked there. Listen, if you ask fellow players about MMOs, I think you will find a shocking number of Destiny 2 players are former WoW or Guild Wars or Eververse peeps. The director of the game is famous for being a hardcore progression raider in World of Warcraft back in the day. Anyone who has played in MMO, an unhealthy amount, knows that cosmetic customization is a tremendous part of the genre's appeal, especially when those cosmetics are gameplay status symbols. The coolest mounts and armor and weapons in World of Warcraft were always gotten from rare raid drops. People afk'd in cities just to show that shit off, and even after WoW started selling mounts, they were never the coolest ones and they never stopped having the best looking stuff locked behind the hardest or grindiest gameplay systems. Bungie's other big selling point on Armor 2.0 was the fact that cosmetic customization would now be a thing. Players kind of assumed that the new universal ornament system was going to be an increase in diversity of looks. Players thought it was going to be a transmog system of sorts. I can't tell you how many people were psyched to go get old raid or AP armor so that everyone could start looking different. People were so excited to be able to make their armor look how they wanted. Especially with the intense increase in grinding for a good build, it was even more likely that players would be wearing ugly mismatch sets so the possibility of having your perfectly rolled but mismatched and ugly armor look like your favorite raid set? That is literally something that players have been begging for since Vanilla Destiny 1. And that is what most people thought they were getting. It's not what we got. Instead, the universal ornament isn't a transmog system. It's not a gameplay system at all. It's a straight up microtransaction system. The only sets, only sets that are universal ornaments are eververse armor sets or battle pass sets. Which means there are very, very few. There are no ornaments earned through gameplay at all. That's annoying. But beyond just being annoying, it's actually made the fashion game in D2 worse than it has ever been before. Because there are double the amount of stats and now random stat rolls and also a 67% chance that any armor piece is useless because it's the wrong color for your build, it is now functionally impossible to ever assemble a full set of armor that both looks good and fits your build. It is literally simply impossible. You need to raid 50 or 60 times to even have a tiny chance to build a full set that has the high stats, is rolled rightly and is the right affinity for what you want. So this means that players will simply not have full sets anymore ever. And that leaves players with two choices. Wear ugly, mismatched armor that you don't like or wear that same armor with one of the five ornaments that don't symbolize anything other than, hey, I had 15 bucks to give Bungie so I'm allowed to look like everyone else. It is so awful that one can only assume it is completely on purpose to drive microtransactions. But if this is the system that they want, they would need to drastically increase the amount of ornaments on offer or sell the ability to make any armor set an ornament. The new season pass armor ornament is awesome, but because it's one of a tiny handful that most players will have, it's going to be worn by everyone. I don't want to look like other players. This is actually precisely the opposite of what customization means. It's about individualizing, about looking unique. Finally, even leaving aside that your choice is now to look weirdly mismatched and ugly or look exactly like everyone else, when you have Eververse as the only place to earn these ornaments, your game has lost something fundamental to the genre. Fashion is a primary driving force in loot games, especially in multiplayer online games. When the best fashion is no longer earned, but only bought, you have neutered half of your reward system and left hundreds of awesome designs in the past. Again, I've got no issue with Bungie selling Eververse sets. In fact, I've got no issue with them selling Eververse ornaments that are super awesome. I would love to buy them, but I do have a problem with only Eververse having ornaments. It is a massive disappointment that took the one thing I was most looking forward to and made it a piece of shit that makes me angry every time I pass over the ornament section on my armor. It sucks and it's a mistake for the game and it might make them some money in the short run, might make them some money in the short run, but it'll suck the life out of their game in the long run, guaranteed. And I'll say it one more time, if they had put in the microtransactions store an item for, say, $2 that allowed you to turn any armor piece into an ornament, it would sell like hotcakes. If I could spend $10 and make my escalation protocol set a universal ornament, I would buy the shit out of that. If I could make any raid armor set into a universal ornament, yeah, I'd buy that. And then you'd be getting Bungie money, driving differences in the way players look and still keeping the gameplay reward of fashion. As it stands now, you don't have that. You can buy the cool armor from Bungie or wear your good rolled mismatched garbage. Wrapping up. Okay this came off very negative I know. I don't really like the new seasonal stuff. I do not like armor 2.0 and I hate the new ornament system. It is a step back. But you know what? I don't hate Shadowkeep. I don't like Shadowkeep, but the game is in a really good place otherwise. Gameplay systems feel tight. There is a stupid, stupid amount of high quality content already in the game and even crucible feels fun again. I rate Shadowkeep as meh. Is it worth the money? I guess. It's no rise of iron or taking king or forsaken, but the game still feels good and there's enough going on to not feel like you've been ripped off. They made a bunch of stuff. Most of it is only decent though. Either way, I am still playing a good amount and I found myself strangely enjoying the fucking battle pass bullshit and for all the shit that does annoy me here, I am hopeful it will change. Bungie has listened to feedback to improve the game. They took a small step here towards RPG depth and fumbled it, confusing grinds with depth. But I think they will adjust it in the coming months. I'm sure there will be better modes coming. I didn't like the reckoning either, but I loved Menagerie. And the raids and dungeons and strikes and gambit are always fun, even when I'm cursing at bullshit invader wallhacks. So should you buy it? Well, if you're not already a player, by all means get the free to play version. It is a great shooter and if you're a committed player, you already own it. I more made this because I just don't think it's all that good and it feels like the first misstep in a while and even though we might be tempted to just cut them some slack after so many successes, that would be a mistake. When something isn't all that good, players need to make sure the developers hear that. There's no chance for improvement otherwise. Alright, I got a video on Code Vein coming up, then a video about the nature of their political spectrums, then other things I assume. Thanks for coming. See you next time. Bye.