Review: Destiny 2: Forsaken

<br>For a free experience, Destiny 2: New Light does provide a lot to do. In many ways, you can experience a lot of the best parts of Destiny 2 without paying for anything. If you haven’t given Destiny 2 a shot yet, New Light is worth downloading.<br><br>The dreaded Eververse store is back and Bungie really wants you to know about it. Previously, the store was relegated to the Tower and completely skippable. That’s no longer the case as Bungie has slapped the storefront into the Director, a menu players need to frequently bring up.<br><br>Since the release of Destiny 2, monetization has been a thorn in all player's sides. Though Bungie tweaked it to be fairer, players still resented the idea that Bungie was selling a $49.99 Season Pass with microtransactions on top of it all while asking players to pay up front to get the game. Anyone hoping things would get better after Bungie's split from Activision isn't going to be happy to hear what's happening in Shadowkeep.<br><br>No matter if playing a Titan, Hunter or Warlock, each subclass now comes with an additional Attunement within it adding some spectacular new powers. Take the Warlocks Dawnblade which now has Attunement of Grace allowing for a super that slams a flaming sword into the ground creating a super rift that does AoE damage, is twice as large as a regular rift and grants both healing with empowering capabilities at the same time. It’s the ultimate team work class. Get to known the new Attunements because they are more than fun -- they’re worth it. Getting these new Attunements isn’t easy, though, as Guardians will have to collect Visions of Light an item that looks like a glowing blue feather that only drops from powerful enemies. After enough have been collected, a quest will appear guiding the Guardian forward. The entire Attunement doesn’t unlock right away either, Forsaken wants the player to feel like they’ve earned being more powerful. Unlocking all the sub-classes won’t be done in a day and that’s a good thing.<br><br>Everything you do in Destiny 2 earns progress towards the next tier, though the rewards don’t seem worth it. Asides from the occasional armor piece or weapon, the 100 tiers of rewards are mostly lackluster. Both Battle Passes contain too many modifiers, currencies, and other useless content meant to keep the grind going. Though earning tiers isn’t based off of time-played, progress in the Battle Passes still feels like a grind. As of publication, it’s not possible to buy tiers.<br><br>Unfortunately, there’s almost no way to earn these items through gameplay. Random tiers on the Battle Pass (we’ll get to that) drop Engrams that contain some of this gear. Other than that, players need to rely on two currencies:<br><br>Silver is Destiny 2’s premium currency that can only be purchased with real-world money. Meanwhile, Bright Dust was introduced as an in-<a href="http://Amfg.Dyndns.org/tiki-tell_a_friend.php?url=http://www.annunciogratis.net/author/cheriek7344">SLG game maps</a> currency that would allow players to earn Eververse items without Silver. With Shadowkeep, however, Bungie has significantly neutered what players can buy all while increasing the amount of Bright Dust players can earn. Items purchasable with Bright Dust are hidden away in a less-than-stellar menu. Only a few items are available at a time with new ones rotating in every few hours.<br><br>After nearly nine months of haranguing from disappointed fans and harsh criticism from the gaming media in general, Bungie has finally presented us with something that is wholly exciting. Destiny 2’s "Forsaken" expansion looks great, better than great even. One could even say that it looks like it contains everything Destiny fans were expecting Destiny 2 to offer from the very beginning. Perhaps even more. Truly, it looks as if Bungie has finally heard the community’s feedback and acted upon it. That, however, only seems to be the case in regard to the content of Forsaken. Unfortunately, everything surrounding it is still classic Destiny-era Bungie. Destiny may be changing soon, but Bungie most certainly isn’t.<br><br>Destiny 2: New Light comes with all content and activities associated with Years 1 of Destiny 2. That includes Destiny 2, Curse of Osiris, and Warmind. New players can access these campaigns by visiting Amanda Holliday in the Tower’s hangar.<br><br>You don't even need to own Shadowkeep to enjoy a lot of the expansion's content. The opening mission, the Moon patrol space, the new two new Strikes and the three Crucible maps are available as part of Destiny 2: New Light, the free-to-play version of the game. While the Raid and campaign are sectioned off, there's a lot you can do without owning Shadowkeep (the Seasonal Activities require you own the Season Pass).<br><br>Become familiar with how weapons work now. Bungie made it a big deal that the weapon system would be changing drastically and it has. While the initial roll of out of these changes was a few weeks ago with update 2.0, Guardians are seeing the full force of these changes now that Forsaken has dropped. Weapons have returned to how things were in Destiny (1) with completely random rolls while certain weapons now find themselves in entirely new slots. The same weapon can drop five times and each time will come with different stats and abilities. This makes for some fun mixing/matching. To make things even easier, if a certain perk works well for one’s play style, putting that perk on the new gun only requires the dismantling of whatever version of the weapon not wanted but getting to keep the perks in modification form that are wanted. Then it’s simple as slapping it on the weapon kept. Forsaken is all about being user friendly and wants Guardians to make the most of their toys. Now that certain weapons find themselves in new slots such as Snipers or Shotguns being in all three slots of Primary, Secondary and Heavy, mixing and matching is highly encouraged. Play around with different load-outs because the possibilities have become greater. I found myself with a Shotgun in my Primary, a Sniper in my Secondary and my trusty Rocket Launcher in my Heavy. It was a blast and while I’ve switched it out since then it was fun playing around seeing how these new combinations favor each other. Pro-tip: Bows. That is all.<br>