Recenze Destiny 2: Lightfall – Zing

On February 28, probably the penultimate DLC for the popular (and still live!) online shooter Destiny 2 started. The conclusion of the story arc, which has been built for almost ten years, should await us next year, and it was Lightfall that fell to the difficult task of preparing the stage and placing all the figures correctly to the grand finale. Succeeded?

• Platform: PCPS5, Xbox Series X/S
• Date of publication: 28. 2. 2023
• Manufacturer: Bungie
• Genre: MMOFPS
• Czech localization: it is
• Multiplayer: Yes – Online + Co-op up to three players
• Data to download: 80 GB
• Game Time: 6+ hours
• Cena: 1249 CZK (PS Store)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-7Cq7LLPr4

In the glow of Neomuna

Lightfall begins with an epic battle that soon takes the player to Neptune, where a thriving human colony has been hiding for hundreds of years. As we already learned from the trailers, the city of Neomuna breathes eighties cyberpunk, so it is a significant change of environment.

The location is quite large, but I would compare it more to the Moon from Shadowkeep, the map from last year’s Witch Queen seemed to me to be bigger and more branched. The campaign is also one of the shorter ones, you will finish it in about six hours on standard difficulty. The good news is the return of the legendary campaign that Bungie introduced us to in Witch Queen. So you can play the story on a higher difficulty, which will reward you with better equipment, thanks to which, for example, you won’t have to grind so much to reach the optimal level for a new raid. What’s a little worse is the fact that unlike a more deliberate increase in difficulty, as was the case in Witch Queen, in Lightfall only the enemies have more health and the game puts more elite units in your way.

The good news is the return of the legendary campaign that Bungie introduced us to in Witch Queen.

Neomuna itself offers a collection of new activities of varying difficulty, and additional quests are unlocked after playing the campaign, new traders and players are a bit pushed to discover hidden bonuses, so you definitely shouldn’t get bored. In particular, the multi-stage Terminal Overload activity is reminiscent of the Escalation Protocol from the Warmind DLC. Dozens and dozens of enemies will flock to you, and each stage has its own boss fight. This is an activity that cannot be played solo and usually involves several random players gathering together for uncoordinated co-op.

Twisted Strand

One of the major innovations is the introduction of a new element called Strand. But here I ran into the first problem. The system in which you get to know the element is practically identical to Beyond Light and the Stasis element. So you are forced to use the element in the story missions, whether you want to or not. The problem is that Beyond Light didn’t have a legendary campaign, and in the increased difficulty Strand simply isn’t strong enough, especially if you go into battle with a carefully tuned build that is useless with the new abilities. It results in quite frustrating moments and victories redeemed only by unbreakable determination.

After completing the campaign and fully unlocking the element, Strand is a solid competitor to established abilities.

However, after completing the campaign and fully unlocking the element, Strand is a very solid competitor to established abilities. Being attracted to anchors in the air or to enemies that you can still put a nice “dot” between the eyes or optics upon impact is surprisingly usable, and the “ultimates” also make you feel like you’ve really done something special.

In full Destiny tradition, these new abilities break up the game a bit, but they’re more of a laughable, and not very frequent, enemy glitch.

The same questions

So far, Lightfall is coming out positively, but all good things must come to an end. In this case, we end with the story. As I wrote in the introduction, according to the available information, there is only one more DLC waiting for us after Lightfall, so it is high time to start unraveling the mountains of mysteries and plots that Bungie has piled up over the years. But that’s exactly what we didn’t get in Lightfall. The questions continue to be bought, we have another and brand new powerful artifact that all NPCs probably know more about than the player, and it will stay that way until the end of the campaign.

Adding to the confusion is a story that takes you from devil to devil with zero explanation, but under the constant threat of apocalypse. The threat of a total disaster, however, contrasts sharply with the frenzied tone, which repeatedly pulls the script into the least expected and quite inappropriate moments. Another nail in the coffin of storytelling are some bizarre decisions on Bungie’s part. Very important information that would have helped the player to draw at least some conclusions is given through anecdotal channels such as random radio transmissions or special missions to obtain a new exotic weapon. These are snippets that not all players will hear. In addition, they will get to the rest only after completing the campaign and after listening to the Dadaistically strange closing speeches of some NPCs.

The threat of total disaster contrasts sharply with the frenzied tone

And to make matters worse, the entire campaign ends with a complete trampling of your efforts and victory. After Lightfall, the player simply cannot have any feeling of satisfaction or having achieved something. In addition, the futility is enhanced by the climax of the last season, which also ended on a rather depressing note. So overall, Lightfall feels rushed and underwhelming story-wise to a degree that I’ve perhaps never seen before in Destiny. It’s a shame, because there’s little to complain about in terms of playability, variability and audio-visuals, but it’s just not enough so close to the finish line.