Destiny 2: Beyond Light Review
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need to know
What is it? Destiny 2’s third expansion [insect-chattering noises].
expect to pay $40/£35
developer Bunge
Publisher Bunge
audit date GeForce GTX 1070, 32GB RAM, Ryzen 7 3700X
multiplayer game? completely
Associate Official website
In many ways, Beyond Light is a classic Destiny extension. There’s a new destination to explore, a new campaign to complete, and a new raid to overcome. There’s also a new elemental damage type, stasis, which is a big deal, but not as much, and it feels like you’re playing a completely different game. The music when starting the game has been changed. Some menus look different. All in all, it’s more like Destiny 2.
But while Beyond Light itself may be traditional, it comes with a more dramatic shift in how Destiny 2 works. Two new projects – Gear Sunset and the Destiny Content Library – are dedicated to deprecating much of the previous content. The former places a power cap on all Legendary weapons, ensuring they can only be infused for a year after release. The latter removes some of the older destinations, along with their associated activities, raids, and quests, to reduce the size of the game and make new content easier to test and implement.
This isn’t the first time Destiny 2 has been overhauled, but Forsaken’s sandbox changes are a successful attempt to bring the much-maligned sequel closer to its more beloved predecessor, and Beyond Light looks forward to Destiny’s sustainable vision for what’s next three years. However, given that so much content has been removed, Beyond Light is under more pressure than ever to execute – to meet the needs of a player base hungry for new, meaningful activities. Did it work? to a certain degree.
(Image credit: Bungie)
Amid Shadowkeep’s obscure hive rituals and tedious armor-making, the Beyond Light campaign itself is a form of throwback. The open surface of Europa is a joy to explore, often obscured by large snowstorms. The campaign quickly moves into a wonderful rhythm of open-world encounters, story beats, and quests—where the Guardians explore industrial labyrinths, Vex constructs, and the creepy sterile lab of the Clovis Bray facility. While there are only a handful of properly instanced missions, the campaign at least feels fleshed out. Some of this is due to levels, which usually means one of the core activities before the next quest, but veteran players will still appreciate the chance to tackle some under-level quests.
Some moments in the campaign feel like a real challenge, thanks to the mix of the Fallen and some of the new enemy types for the Vex — the two main threats patrolling Europa — and the removal of race-specific damage resistance mods. Vex Wyverns slams and dive bombs players, knocking them back and into the hands of the Architect. The Fallen Brig is like a miniature version of the Scourge raid bosses of yesteryear, summoning air strikes to punish predictable movement. As for quest bosses, the new stasis element type is available to all, meaning if you get hit by one of their attacks, you’ll be frozen in place – forced to press your skill button to burst, lest you Be followed to smash upwards to attack.
In trouble
Since Beyond Light’s launch, Stasis’s impact on players has been a point of contention, and for understandable reasons.Getting hit by a freeze effect rarely feels good, let alone in-game all about How do you move through its space. I think it works well in PvE skirmishes, though, and the clear telegram makes getting caught on ice feel like an appropriate punishment for not responding to its presence. In PvP, it’s a little more complicated, but arguably an effective and fun counter attack against shotgunners. A recent hotfix also made stasis less overbearing in the Crucible, and I think the results are mixed. As a Warlock workhorse, feel free to take my complaints as salt, but I feel like in normal crucible operation, as a fun wrench, the pendulum swings too much for stagnation. Hope the plan will be adjusted further.
(Image credit: Bungie)
Beyond Light’s antagonist Eramis proved to be a good early foil, as the Fallen felt a seldom-relevant relationship to the Destiny Aliens. The motive for Saving the House is obvious, as we have been killing fallen leaders for six years, and the impact is evident. But in reality, Eramis is just the catalyst that kicks things off—a threat that forces us to adapt, but is quickly dispelled. The true story takes place after the campaign and focuses on the re-emergence of the Exo Stranger, our acquisition and use of the dark powers, and Clovis Bray’s conspiracy. The post-campaign mission represents a watershed moment in Destiny’s storytelling — actually answering questions that have been around since the series launched. Destiny is usually pretty good at throwing plot beats into the air and letting them hang indefinitely, so even the limited-resolution opportunity feels — as someone who has collected all of Destiny 2’s in-game lore books — exciting, And give the plot a feeling of motivation and purpose.
Your morally ambiguous friend shows up, makes some cool moves, and encourages you to start honking on their dark pipes.
However, the story doesn’t always come to fruition. In particular, the way you first get Dark Powers doesn’t feel great given the wider context. Your morally ambiguous friend shows up, makes some cool moves, and encourages you to start honking their dark pipes – and you keep doing it. Peer pressure, I think, is a powerful thing.Of course, the need to navigate the darkness has been mocked last season, and: it only Four main destinations were removed. At one point — in a near-parody moment — Zavala appeared vaguely shaking his head, worried, but ultimately believing in your actions. This is where pretty much everyone ends up: caring but supportive. Ultimately, I think it would be worse if players were condemned for choices they couldn’t control, but that would certainly cut some of the drama.
In the game, though, I’m digging into what the darkness brings. Stillness is an interesting ability in the sandbox. The previous abilities were largely focused on damage handling, with some subclass-specific support or crowd control options, while stills don’t take a heavy hit, but offer a powerful way to put your enemies at a disadvantage. The new Aspects and Fragments — additional unlockable passive bonuses you can add to Stasis — are a victory that lets you exploit frozen enemies in as many ways as you like. All in all, it feels like a powerful new tool in an increasingly capable suite of theory formulation options, and I’d like to see previous subclasses repurposed to take advantage of these new customization methods.
(Image credit: Bungie)
After the campaign, players will receive the expected combination of missions, leveling, and grinding. While it felt a little slim during launch week, the list of possible activities and powerful and pinnacle rewards needed to reach maximum power levels has filled up – whether it’s completing a sabotage mission found on Europa, or the world’s first deep dive Stone Crypt Raid. This staged approach to the expansion is perhaps not surprising given how Shadowkeep and its subsequent seasons have been handled, but I do question the wisdom of the time-limited approach — especially for a release as reliant on it as Beyond Light. Like most live service games, Destiny 2 has been grappling with the question of whether it will be enough to keep players engaged and releasing an expansion that feels sparser than it actually is — just another point on the content calendar, while Not a moment in itself – does not quell those fears.
out of the shadows
That said, I’ve played over 60 hours on a character over the past few weeks, and I’ve never felt overwhelmed between the end of the campaign and the start of the new season. This is partly due to some reorganization of how loot is rewarded in-game. New Exotic armor pieces are available through solo completion of Legendary and Master of the Lost Realms, a satisfying way to tie meaningful rewards to challenging activities. Even Europa’s new arsenal isn’t being given out for free, and most of it has to do with Imperial Hunting — repeating the campaign’s main mission, rewarding another chance to get the perfect roll on a particular gun.
One of my main complaints about Shadowkeep is that I don’t care about its weapons. This is a growing problem in Destiny 2, with the best versions of most prototypes already available, meaning there’s little need to chase new loot. For me, this is no longer the case. I’m actively pursuing better hail mayhem, heat erosion and the deafening whispers of the new seasonal grenade launcher. This is partly due to some coveted new perks like Surplus, which improve the handling, stability and reload speed of each of your fully charged abilities, creating an interesting interplay between gunplay and space magic. Mostly, though, it’s because – albeit debatable – sunset works.
(Image credit: Bungie)
It’s an obvious point, but yes: keep old guns out of the end game Do Make new sensations relevant. Even more surprising to me, I don’t hate my previous arsenal being stripped away. I’m excited to play with these new toys, and am pleased with the time I spent in previous seasons chasing the great Fallen Guillotine or the Martyr’s Retribution, knowing they’ll remain relevant for months to come. I haven’t thought about the hermit for weeks.It turns out, yes, I Can Exit at any time.
Ultimately, I think Sunset is good for Destiny 2’s future, but the current implementation lacks nuance.
That said, the system has been hit more than it should, precisely because much of Destiny 2 is now gone. We’ve been told that Destiny Content Vault will reduce the game’s file size and speed up loading, which has already happened, and reduces the number of bugs at launch, which is…well, not that much. But removing a lot of old content means less chance of breaking old content. At least Bungie is now planning to lower the power cap on general Strike playlists, which means there will be a place in PvE to break old favorites. Sunset also doesn’t work with the general Crucible playlist, where level advantage is disabled. The upshot of this is that sunset guns like Mountaintop are still receiving specific, targeted nerfs, which really undermines the whole program’s focus to some extent.
Ultimately, I think Sunset is good for Destiny 2’s future, but the current implementation lacks nuance and currently hurts the few old locations that survived the Content Vault. Various destinations and activities at Forsaken and Shadowkeep still exist, but are almost completely meaningless. Guns obtained from Last Wish and Garden of Salvation raids have been updated to their current max infusion caps, but other events reward deprecated loot. This means there’s nothing to gain from participating in the Altar of Sorrow public event, completing a Nightmare Hunt, or venturing to the Blind Well in the City of Dreams.
Preferred weapon
(Image credit: Bungie)
Bungie could well explore some solutions. At the most basic level, I think the guns associated with expansion campaigns should drop without a power cap – ensuring that every destination has a pool of weapons that are always worth chasing. But I also think Bungie is better off thinking about reasons to replay old content, not just guns. For example, Abyss of Heresy is still worth running weekly as it still drops…
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