Future 2 Lightfall promised to be the groundbreaking penultimate storyline in a story developed over almost a decade. However the situation is usually sport builders make guarantees they’ll’t maintain. Not each enlargement and marketing campaign storyline can change the sport like Forsaken or introduce us to forcing narrative twists like these in The Witch Queen. Nevertheless, Lightfall appears like a major step backwards from the complicated, interwoven threads that when led a whole neighborhood to grieve for the dying of Cayde-6 or, much more just lately, shed a tear at Rasputin’s sacrifice.
Maybe there’s some confusion among the many builders as to what Future 2 means to gamers in comparison with what it means to these in cost. The event crew sought to ship a futuristic neon metropolis and a Darkness subclass that’s paradoxically vivid within the FPS sport, whereas what might have really satiated gamers is a clearer grasp of the stakes surrounding the Traveler, the Veil, and the way forward for humanity.
Be aware that this evaluate is comparatively early within the gameplay expertise, reflecting a number of hours of marketing campaign content material. There’s so much to discover in Future 2 Lightfall, and we’re nonetheless working our method by it. Nonetheless, with a number of hours of the Legendary marketing campaign accomplished, suffice it to say it’s notably underwhelming.
Perhaps it’s intentional {that a} DLC dubbed Lightfall might depart gamers at nighttime. However, in what ought to be a few of the sport’s most pivotal moments, we’re as a substitute left scratching our heads about what’s happening.
It’s attainable Bungie has an even bigger plan in thoughts and can unravel the Veil’s significance over the following few seasons. However with Lightfall providing a lot promise in what ought to ostensibly be the largest showdown to this point, the fight narrative presently appears like it could be resulting in the worst model of “it was a dream all alongside.”
In fact, maybe the forthcoming Future 2 Lightfall raid, named Root of Nightmares, will reply some questions for us. However why cover a few of the sport’s finest content material behind an exercise a minimum of half the playerbase is unlikely ever to see? The marketing campaign is the promoting level for a motive: it ought to make gamers of all backgrounds and talent units really feel invested.
The marketing campaign feels manageable on Legendary issue — besides when it isn’t. After crusing by the primary two missions within the Future 2 Lightfall mission record, Downfall felt like a chore. Even my strongest builds couldn’t face up to the world that appears to be missing cowl, and even with a Future 2 Downfall mission information, it nonetheless felt tedious.
Bungie actually needed to amp up the issue with Lightfall, however that immediately begs the query, who is that this sport for? At its core, it’s a free sport supported by microtransactions and DLC content material and designed to enchantment to as broad of an viewers as attainable. But when the Legendary marketing campaign rewards exotics that folks of all talent units have paid to have the ability to entry, then doesn’t it really feel like a slight to less-skilled gamers? Or, for instance, the recently-released Future 2 Vexcalibur unique glaive is hidden behind a mission that even seasoned gamers discover troublesome on its regular issue. Gamers can solely receive the catalysts by finishing it on Legendary issue, which has an influence cap which means less-skilled Guardians can’t merely grind for pinnacles to make it manageable for them. Maybe the concept is to power individuals to ask buddies and play as fireteams. And that is likely to be okay, if the sport’s promised Wanting For Group options have been launched with Lightfall. However there are millions of Future 2 gamers who merely favor the solo expertise, and never all of them are die-hard gamers. Shouldn’t it’s attainable for them to acquire catalysts with out placing themselves by torture? And additional, isn’t there an argument that weaker gamers are those who want these catalysts probably the most?
Finally, that is merely a query of steadiness as the traditional marketing campaign issue felt simpler than most low-level, pre-Lightfall Vanguard strikes. Perhaps as a substitute of specializing in an pointless rating system, the sport might as a substitute provide higher signifiers as to issues equivalent to total harm enhance when combining sure mods and Fragments. Or, it might discover another indicator to let gamers know why they’re getting one-shot by Tormenters or why weapons gamers have relied on for years appear immediately nerfed out of existence. In fact, it’s at all times been my perspective {that a} participant shouldn’t need to go exterior of a sport to discover ways to play it. However Bungie appears hell-bent on including layer upon layer of complexity when it might behove the builders to easily handle the fundamentals.
It’s simple to see why Lightfall has gamers divided. Take Nimbus, for instance. The sport attracts on the stakes of the Darkness versus the Gentle to carry us to the Metropolis of Neomuna, the place we meet a friendly-but-goofy ally paying homage to a personality in a traditional episode of The Simpsons, during which the favored Itchy and Scratchy TV present introduces a canine named Poochie to bolster rankings. Whereas Nimbus provides a playful voice to the sport, they really feel doomed to hitch the solid of characters who play nothing greater than a cameo position in a sport dedicated to counting on new characters as lazy plot units.
Maybe a part of the difficulty with that is within the expectations. The advertising and marketing supplies surrounding Lightfall constructed it as much as inform the story that might lead us to the house sport’s remaining chapter. However Bungie ought to know one factor: if it desires to maintain its gamers joyful, it ought to by no means make a promise it could possibly’t maintain.
There are some highlights. The Future 2 Strand subclass is enjoyable to make use of. For what Bungie could also be missing in storytelling, it seems to have balanced in its personal method with a singular subclass that introduces a wholly new playstyle into the sport.
There are lots of new exotics, quests, missions, and a forthcoming all-new raid. There are weekly story missions and actions, and, whereas PvP might nonetheless use new maps and Gambit stays totally untouched, Future 2 Iron Banner guarantees to return thrice a season. All of that is to recommend that, for not precisely nailing the storyline content material, the crew remains to be giving gamers a ton of content material for the sport’s price ticket, although even that seems to be inflating in each iteration.
Additional, the sport’s quality-of-life enhancements are useful. Options equivalent to Loadouts are extraordinarily helpful, and whereas I don’t discover Guardian Ranks notably attention-grabbing, the UI that helps them and makes it simple to finish Guardian Ranks-related challenges is clear and seamless. Commendations seem to be an interesting strategy to acknowledge teammates however are little greater than ineffective in follow. Maybe the most effective one I acquired was once I loaded into an exercise close to its finish and, after having accomplished completely nothing earlier than the mission ended, my teammates jokingly deemed me enjoyable to play with.
And, relating to unique weapons, Lightfall doesn’t disappoint. The Strand-based Future 2 Remaining Warning unique sidearm and the Void-based Deterministic Chaos unique machine gun are each implausible weapons which can be enjoyable to make use of. Whereas the questline to earn the Future 2 Winterbite unique glaive has some time-gating when it comes to when you may full a selected exercise, which is at all times absolute B.S. designed to power gamers to log in on completely different days to finish targets that shouldn’t be tied to day by day resets, it nonetheless feels definitely worth the chase.
We’ll proceed to replace this evaluate as we undergo the favored multiplayer sport and discover the whole lot Lightfall presents. Till then, take a look at our Future 2 season 20 overview and Future 2 Lightfall exotics record to see what’s new.