Both expansions in question came out of the gates to address this through new ability trees. This is exactly why Anthem failed so horrendously, among other things. If the player doesn’t feel powerful, the gear game will inevitably suck. For starters, these experiences need to fulfil a certain power fantasy. When I think of what makes a looter-shooter fun, there are a few core pillars. Little things like the Touch of Malice questline, which was not only tied to the raid but also tied to exploration, or other hidden little gems like The Shattered Throne are examples of how Bungie clearly understands what it takes to create a compelling looter experience. They truly respected your time but it was also very clear that the intent was to maintain quite a significant level of player retention. There was a certain level of beauty and elegance in these expansions’ design. They expanded their loot pools, gave players new and interesting gear and ultimately rewarded their curiosity and exploration. These expansions truly understood what it takes to create a thrilling looter-shooter experience. You would be hard-pressed to find players that don’t agree with TTK and Forsaken being the two best expansions that the IP has ever received. To explain why Beyond Light is such a disappointment, we need to look at the IP’s history and its best periods – Destiny: The Taken King and Destiny 2: Forsaken. Instead, it is a perfect representation of Bungie’s lackadaisical design philosophy and reliance on monotony. Unfortunately, Beyond Light is a frustratingly shallow expansion that is void of content and creativity in its design. Bungie unveiled this expansion as the first of a line of yearly expansions which demonstrate a potential story focus and direction for the game, something which has never exactly been present in either of the games. While I haven’t really played the game much since the second season of Shadowkeep started, I had high hopes for Beyond Light. Namely an insane focus on bounties as content and a season pass model which has promoted a mindset that proper new content should only come once a year. However, Destiny 2 and Bungie have both been in a spot of bother recently, with a lot of the developer’s decisions as an independent developer coming at the cost of the game. Destiny has been a part of my gaming life since its alpha period and I still regard the original game as one of my favourite experiences in gaming. The developer is solely responsible for my sentimentality towards Microsoft, to be perfectly honest. Bungie as a developer has consistently played an important part in shaping who I am today, with a lot of my early gaming life being spent in the classic Halo games. I have quite a long history with Bungie and Destiny.
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