Destiny fans have been…most displeased with Curse of Osiris, Destiny 2’s first DLC that was supposed to improve the struggling sequel, but in many ways, ended up making things worse.
Whether it’s the repetitive Infinite Forest, the nonsensical Osiris story or the slow creep of Eververse taking over the game, there is a lot to push back against. However, I thought it would be interesting to take a look back at the other “first” DLC, The Dark Below, which was the first expansion released for the original Destiny back in December of 2014.
While I agree that Curse of Osiris has many (many) problems, I do think it’s important to stop and take a look back at how far we’ve come. The Dark Below is the original disappointing DLC for Destiny, though I think we forget about that now both because it’s been so long, but also because the hype was so high at the time for Destiny, people were a lot more excited about any new content for it, however paltry.
In reality though…
- The story was anemic. This was back in the Dinklebot Ghost era, and it was strange to see that he had zero new lines in the DLC, as did your Guardian (this was back when they could talk). There were absolutely no cutscenes, and it was only Eris Morn who was added to the game to do all the heavy lifting (she didn’t start having clever banter with Cayde-6 until The Taken King). There was some decent lore behind Crota, but actual story content was sorely lacking in the expansion.
- The new areas added to the game were almost nonexistent. There were just a select few passageways opened up for new missions (Rasputin’s bunker), and forget anything approaching a new zone or a significant expansion to an existing one.
- There were three story missions total, one that was an intro mission that initially disappeared after you beat it. After the two short missions that followed, the game then tried to fill time by making you “assassinate” Hive targets for 30 minutes to open up the new Strike (Omnigul).
- Despite how little content was in this DLC, Bungie gave a full strike to PlayStation players as an exclusive, the Undying Mind.
- There were only three exotic weapons introduced in this DLC, the then-underwhelming Dragon’s Breath, the absolutely horrific No Land Beyond (at least at launch), and Necrochasm, the raid exotic that struggled for ages to be as powerful as it needed to be.
- Part of the reason the rest of this was so paltry was because so much focus was put on the raid, something a majority of players don’t normally end up beating. Crota’s End was…good, but one of the most easily cheesable raids in existence when it launched (yanking the internet cord out to freeze Crota), and it sucked all the oxygen out of the rest of the DLC.
So, yes, I understand that it’s been three years, so the game should be held to a higher standard as it grows, but I do think that Curse of Osiris offers content that’s miles beyond what we got in the first expansion DLC in the original game. Mercury, however small, and the Infinite Forest, however repetitive, is 30x the real estate that TDB offered. The same goes for the story, which had a lot of actual voicework and a few cutscenes (though a bad story is not much better than no story, I’ll admit). And between the story missions, the strikes, the patrol content, Forrest adventures, the Raid Lair, new exotics and the Prophecy weapon hunt, there was just a lot….more.
No, I don’t think Curse of Osiris had what it needed to “fix” Destiny 2, as the game’s problems are rooted more deeply than just “needs more stuff,” but I do think there was a lot of effort put in here, and this DLC is leagues more substantive than The Dark Below, but also House of Wolves, as well.
Alright, alright, I’ll hope off the Bungie defense train and find something to complain about soon, but this has been on my mind since Curse of Osiris launched, and I thought it was time to bring it up.
Follow me on Twitter and on Facebook. Pick up my sci-fi novel series, The Earthborn Trilogy, which is now in print, online and on audiobook.
