Destiny 2: Lightfall Review

A few years of waiting have brought us to this place, Lightfall has arrived in Destiny 2 and with it a number of changes that promise to give us a better gaming experience.

The fight against light and darkness ends with this expansion, as its name describes it, Destiny 2 has entered a new stage in which, like the famous The Taken King expansion, a noticeable change in gameplay could be seen as well as some endings in the story.

As we have seen in all the trailers and information published by its creators, Destiny 2: Lightfall goes further and introduces a new enemy, a new location to fight and of course a new subclass called Strand. Uniting old characters already seen throughout all the expansions and with the inclusion of new Lightfall allies offers interesting potential.

Before continuing it is worth noting that this review is free of spoilers although the opinion given here is based on all the missions that the expansion brings with it including a long journey of 3 continuous days, leveling up and exploring everything. On the other hand I also leave the specifications of my PC:

Destiny 2 performance is outstanding, such an old game still offers great visual concepts, outstanding soundtrack and most of all addictive gameplay for fans like me. Bungie’s promise to add more quality of life to the game means that even those who play the free version will benefit, although obviously every time you want to get something they will tell you that you must acquire one or another DLC.

Destiny 2: Lightfall It puts us once again to face a great threat, this time we have The Witness, a strange being that seeks above all to end The Traveler who is so to speak our leader. The core of this whole story is to finally show us what it’s all about, because the light is no longer the same and although this is explained in a very stupid way, the whole story of this expansion is based on that.

The difference of this expansion to all the others is the inclusion of a new subclass that in a certain sense should add much more value to the game but unfortunately it falls quite short. At the level of history and content we have a somewhat limited number of scenes that, although its narrative is acceptable, I think it could have been better.

The Destiny franchise has always been one of my favorites and although it has had its ups and downs throughout all these years, something has remained, for example, the interesting cinematics that make you get excited a lot but that throughout the day do not add to it. the value that as gamers we all want. The bell of the game feels very empty, it is as if even the narrative itself is wandering without meaning in some cases and although everything is based on these new abilities and not on the great threat that besieges us, we still feel somewhat incomplete.

A large part of my hours of play was focused on raising the light level because in the end I am going to receive the new ability, I am going to complete the story, but the essence of knowing the why of many things in Destiny 2 has been lost. In the videos we could see how an old enemy is reinforced by The Witness and although I imagined a huge confrontation with him unfortunately they leave him aside, the great threat turned out to be something easy to defeat and this really disappointed me.

I am not going to lie to you that if I enjoy these hours of play and that is what having an expansion available for us to enjoy it to the fullest is about, but the exciting concept is behind us, Destiny 2 is no longer the same and although many things were balanced along with this update the game is lacking in creativity in some ways.

Some exploration zones have returned and now we are going to Neptune, a whole (and new) area to explore but sadly it feels very empty. The entire city feels like something more than a multiplayer Crucible map where players meet in one place and point. We do have those traditional events across the map but they don’t do justice to what’s really about to happen.

Two new characters are introduced to the game, this race (who lives on Neptune) are our fellow travelers and we need to complete missions to receive rewards. These are the defenders of the new city Neomuna and unfortunately it seems that these two are the only living beings in this place but unfortunately I feel that it is not very helpful to “patrol” this area since there is not much to do or explore.

Having the ability to create a loadout of our guardian is a completely acceptable addition, since at other times we had to change everything manually for each activity, say PvP or PvE or even the raid itself. Being able to customize and have direct access to change all this is without a doubt one of the most exquisite improvements that this update has.

In addition to that we can also add modifiers to armor and weapons in a simpler way. When before we had to go directly to the weapon now on the right side and with a click we can see the list of modifiers for each component among other things. These kinds of improvements give a higher quality of life to the game since they make things much easier.

Although with the launch of this expansion the numbers of Destiny 2 increased considerably, this does not mean that the game is bad at all. The hype was quite big and expansions like The Witch Queen make the others fall somewhat short. Not only content at the cinematic level and missions are what make a good DLC, but rather the hours of play along with the entertainment that they offer. Narrative and meaningful scenes are what turn a simple expansion into something extremely reasonable.

This new subclass adds a different system to the gameplay. Not having grenades but the way you swing around the map as Spider-Man is quite interesting, seeing everyone have the same green ability and all that combat system is a great addition. It needs to add a little more versatility to the sub class but to be one of the most important entertainment of this expansion if it is clear that it is not to surprise us so much.

Some characters in this expansion make it clear to you that their involvement is something insignificant and while these conversations are really interesting to watch they are not impressive at all. I miss those Cayde-6 voice-over narratives and how those slightly weird jokes make you laugh as you advance on the map looking for the mission objective, things like that are what kept me more and more in love with Destiny but that was lost.

In conclusion,

Destiny 2: Lightfall It is the expansion that we wanted to see happen for a long time and in the end it left us with a half taste. With a very hollow story and a narrative that makes little sense, this could be one of the most challenging expansions for Bungie, since with the inclusion of the new subclass Strand it seems that the efforts of the work team were divided in doing everything right for the player but left aside for which each fan pays for an expansion. We have hours of gameplay, new levels, weapons, armor and excellent visual quality typical of Bungie but Neptune is not what I really thought. Much of your journey will be understanding why you are fighting against a threat that in the end seems to be not so threatening, you no longer feel that rush to defeat the enemy and see what comes next now what we have to do is finish the mission to see if we go up a bit plus the attack power of our guardian. This review was done on PC and the copy of the game was thanks to Bungie.