Playing Destiny regularly over the past decade, with all its unforgettable highs and painful lows, has been a huge leap of faith for me and my fellow Guardians. This uneven saga hasn’t always felt like it was leading anywhere worth following, but with Destiny 2: The Final Shape it looks like our faith has finally been rewarded. After some extremely difficult server issues on launch day, followed by two days of non-stop play, what I’ve seen so far has been overwhelmingly awesome. The campaign (in the absence of a real finale at this point) is one of the best in the history of the series, the new Prismatic subclasses are exactly the badass shock to the system that the sandbox needed, the new set of weapons was literally a blast to mess around with, and the fearsome Dread enemy faction bring some welcome variety and difficulty to the battlefield. There’s still a lot to play, including the endgame raid I’ll be fighting this weekend and the story conclusion behind it – but as the end of this 10-year saga takes its final shape, Destiny is going to be more fun than ever before, and I’m excited to see it whether he can survive the landing.
If you’re arriving extremely late to the space opera party, The Final Shape is the latest (and perhaps best) expansion in developer Bungie’s ongoing, magic-infused multiplayer FPS. As an immortal and murderous-minded Guardian, over the years I’ve had the privilege of defending humanity from all manner of alien threats, from evil wizard insects to an extremely boring robot army, while looting cool weapons and armor and unlocking sweet space magic. skills, leveling and juggling so much currency, menus and poorly explained RPG systems that your head is in danger of exploding Arc of the Covenant style if you don’t have a friend to guide you through it. After seven years of expansions, patches, and seasonal updates, Destiny 2 has become one of the best and twelve of the worst games you’ll ever play, all wrapped up in a live service package unlike anything else. It is awesome; I detest it.
The Final Shape has the unenviable task of wrapping up the main story of good versus evil that has been happening haphazardly since the first Destiny. Although, for the most part, that story has been a veritable jambalaya of overused tropes, sci-fi drivel, and lore so complicated that one player had to make a ten-hour YouTube video to explain itit occasionally brings the heat with some truly compelling characters and meaningful stories, like those found in 2022’s The Witch Queen. So far, The Final Shape seems to consider itself one of the rare examples of solid storytelling, with it finally focuses on the great evil hinted at from the very beginning for a showdown with the fate of the universe at stake.
That nemesis comes in the form of The Witness, and while I wasn’t impressed with the initial character reveal or setup that took place over the past two years leading up to this finale, The Final Shape’s campaign is chock full of hard-hitting cutscenes that explain a lot finally convinced me of this existential horror. I won’t go into details to spare you spoilers, but The Witness ended up being a much more interesting villain than I expected. The threat facing humanity finally feels real instead of like a distant shadow we have a date with. and I’m thrilled that we’re finally getting real answers to the questions we’ve had all these years.
That said, there are still plenty of points in The Final Shape where Destiny’s generally sloppier storytelling continues in that tradition, such as in the story’s middle act, where it turns to some drama with the stoic and tough Commander Zavala, who suddenly (and with just the barest hint of justification) becomes an emotional loose cannon to add a little unearned tension to the mix. There are also some side stories with obscure characters returning from seasons you may not have played or stories you probably haven’t read, which usually takes the focus away from the conflict at hand without adding much to it – the kind of par- for-the-course shaky Destiny stories that have been annoying me since 2014.
But ultimately what matters is whether or not The Final Shape can deliver a satisfying conclusion, and that remains to be seen. While I enjoyed the seven-mission main story, which can be completed in as many hours, it doesn’t have a real ending yet. Instead, it launches the raid that unlocks today and will serve as a final major battle before an eighth and final campaign mission that will likely wrap things up. Here’s hoping Bungie can give us something at least as good as the rest of the campaign, as it’s largely delivered a satisfying finale so far.
Regardless of how that story ends, the levels you play and the new areas you explore are some of my favorites so far. As you delve into the body of a God, you’ll explore The Pale Heart of the Traveler, a bizarre reality in which a person’s memories, desires, and fears manifest in the physical world. What starts as an idyllic yet peculiar world begins to turn into a horrific landscape, as the twisted wishes of The Witness spoil it, with a set of gross hands and faces filling the environment. That gives it an uneasy and surreal quality that’s vastly different from the largely grounded areas our Guardians have visited so far. It’s also fantastic that we’ve finally gotten a map that isn’t just a loop with a few small areas to explore, but instead favors a fairly linear layout that feels like you’re going from the Shire to Mount Doom travels on an epic quest to set the world right. I’m still exploring the nooks and crannies, shooting and looting everything I can find, but it’s already by far my favorite destination.
Likewise, the missions follow in The Witch Queen’s fantastical footsteps by adding light attack mechanics and challenging combat encounters, offering more than the mindless shooting arcades that Destiny is sometimes reduced to. In one level you jump between two realities to solve a puzzle and kill a huge boss, and in another level you fight to the top of a series of icy peaks, taking advantage of gale force winds to get you over huge gaps to push. Each level does a great job of teaching you a new mechanic here and there, slowly increasing the complexity of the gunplay and puzzle solving until you’re somehow juggling half a dozen things at once during the final battle and eliminate an army of enemies. in one of the toughest confrontations yet. I really enjoyed playing through the entire campaign solo on Legendary, and I’m already looking forward to going through it again with friends using my other characters.
One of the things that makes these missions so fun is the first new enemy faction Destiny has gotten in six years, called the Dread. Even the two other enemy factions added in previous Destiny expansions were mostly remixes of existing enemies, so you could argue that the Dread is the first completely original faction yet, and what a difference that makes. The grim, bat-like creatures that fly around pelting you with blaster fire and screeching at you to slow your movement are overwhelming in large groups, while the Husk are melee bruisers that rush you with deadly blades and unleash explosive creatures upon you fly if you don’t. Don’t kill them in a specific way. Most of these additions are absolutely great and inject some much-needed variety into a sandbox that has stagnated over time. That said, there are a few that are less inspired: Attendants and Weavers, for example, appear almost as reskinned enemies of an existing race and pelt you with annoying abilities, including one that makes you move extremely slowly for far too long, and which makes you move extremely slowly for far too long. resulted in more than a few deaths that felt a little cheap. Still, these are minor issues I have with a faction I’ve enjoyed fighting so far.
As always, the latest Destiny expansion comes with a whole arsenal of unique toys for you to loot and deploy on your enemies, and The Final Shape has some really nice additions. The Call, a small sidearm that fires mini-missiles, is absolutely phenomenal to mess around with, while Lost Signal is a grenade launcher that fires a few explosives that do damage over time. My personal favorite new item is an exotic one called Hazardous Propulsion, which launches a series of missiles from your back when you use your class ability, which has gotten me out of so many tight spots lately – I’m completely obsessed. Destiny has always been known for its gunplay, even when other aspects of the shooter fell short, so none of this is particularly surprising. But even for a game known for its awesome weapons and armor, The Final Shape is a standout in what it offers so far. They really cooked this, folks!
The Final Shape also adds to Destiny’s magical space repertoire with a new subclass called Prismatic, which lets you mix and match certain Light and Darkness abilities from other subclasses to create interesting combinations. It then adds a number of new abilities of its own, from grenades that combine different types of damage and status effects to do things like suspend enemies in the air and electrocute everything in the environment, to new super abilities that let you use giant exploding axes on the battlefield and then pick them up to wreak havoc on the enemy. Being able to wield a mix of elements and skills that were previously behind their own specific classes is a big game changer and takes buildcrafting to the next level in terms of customization and play with different abilities. I have yet to unlock all the options and have only played one character class (the Titan) at the moment, and I’m equally overwhelmed and excited by the possibilities.
I’ve played about 30 hours of The Final Shape so far, and will easily play another 40 hours this weekend as I dive into the raid, finish the story, explore more of the side content, and try out the other character classes, but I I’m already impressed with what I’ve seen. I’ll be back with a scored review sometime next week, but The Final Shape has already delivered in more ways than I thought possible – I hope the momentum continues as Bungie rolls out the final act.