Yesterday, I was pretty harsh on Shadowkeep, listing five things the Destiny 2 expansion has gotten either minorly or majorly wrong. And yet with nearly 100 hours into the expansion in not even three weeks, clearly it’s doing something right to keep me engaged. So, what is that, exactly?
There’s a wide range of stuff that Shadowkeep gets right in my eyes, and I do really like the expansion overall, even if it’s not quite at the level of a Forsaken or Taken King in terms of scope or quality. It’s better than Rise of Iron, certainly, and the past three annual pass seasons at the very least.
So, what’s to love?
1. Moon Weapons
You can debate the armor sets if you want, but the moon weapons? Damn, they’re just fantastic. I have not used one I haven’t loved yet, and it’s not just the visual design (which is rad) or the perk combinations (my beloved spike/full court Grenade Launcher at last), above all else it’s the sound design.
That may be an odd thing to praise as normally it’s overlooked, but Bungie has truly outdone themselves with the sounds of these weapons this time around. The GL barks when you unload its round. The sniper rifle screams. Pretty much all of these weapons save one or two (maybe the SMG?) have iconic, memorable sounds that make the experience using and firing them all that much more fantastic. And with great perks on every gun to hunt for, it’s truly one of the best new slates of weapons Destiny has ever seen, in my opinion.
2. Target Farming
Bungie has clearly taken a core lesson from the Annual Pass to heart, that we want to be able to target farm gear. They’ve now created a system where you can pick any piece of moon armor, any moon weapon, and any Vex Offensive weapon and farm the living hell out of it endlessly until you get the roll you want. Vex Offensive armor drops so much that it doesn’t really need its own target farm, but that’s another, bonus thing, Offensive is incredibly generous with its loot drops, 3-4 random Vex drops a run plus a targeted 1-2 weapons. That’s approaching non-nerfed Menagerie level generous. More of this in the future please (and they may want to extend this concept to raids, which now seem overly stingy by comparison).
3. Ongoing Storytelling
All it took was a crane, and I was in. That second week, Ikora began constructing something behind her spot in the tower. The next week, we saw that it was a Vex Gate which we’re going to head into to fight the Undying mind in countless parallel timelines to end the Vex Offensive.
Even if I still have mixed feelings about the activity being taken away, I really like this Fortnite-esque style of ongoing storytelling where things change week to week leading to some big “event” to end the season. It’s a reason to keep checking back in with the game to see what’s developing, and it feels like we as a community are contributing to the cause (giving Ikora Vex materials every week). And if my theory is right, the Final Assault will be a community challenge that will require us to kill X amount of copies of the Undying Mind, similar to the Mars challenge a while back.
Even the smaller scale parts of this storytelling are good, like freeing Eris from the ghosts of her fireteam, or learning new information from the Pyramid people in the ongoing “The Gardner and the Winnower” story. All good stuff.
4. The Meta (Mostly)
Players were worried about the pretty massive slate of nerfs to player buffs, enemy debuffs and super gain that were arriving with Shadowkeep, but ultimately, I think it put the game in a pretty good place. The game has reduced (though not eliminated) instant boss burning with these changes, and I definitely think it was a good idea to kill “must have” things like an auto-reloading Well for every encounter. Bosses feel at least a little more like bosses now rather than paper mache targets. I have appreciated buffs to a lot of weapon classes. Auto rifles feel great now, so do SMGs and sidearms, if you’ve bothered to use them. Scouts are definitely improved, if still not exactly where they need to be. I kind of like the Izanagi meta, which feels unique but not broken.
Crucible is…less perfect, but that’s kind of par for the course. OEM, Recluse, Mountaintop and Erentil are still dominating, and all need some work, but I’ve already written about that. I think the changes to super and heavy in PvP have been good, however. Overall, the game feels like it’s in a pretty solid state in both PvE and PvP, at least as much as a game like Destiny can ever truly be “balanced.”
5. The Battle Pass/Artifact
I didn’t quite know what to make of the new focus on XP grinding with both the seasonal artifact and the new season rank battle pass system. But now that I’ve used both of them in practice, I really do enjoy each of them in their own way.
The battle pass is a good way to increase engagement without really technically being a new microtransaction because the premium track comes with the seasonal content anyway, meaning you will always have it if you want to play anything in the new season. I felt genuinely accomplished when I finally unlocked the new Phenotype ornament set, because it’s A) very good and B) I didn’t have to buy it from Eververse. It’s a lengthy, solid grind that you always feel like you’re making progress toward no matter what you do.
The Artifact is a similarly solid experiment. I have really enjoyed the new artifact mods, whether they’re things like super cheap enhanced reloaders, or game-changing build mods like the new super void grenade build or the infinite arc melee build. Those have been a blast to play around with, and feel incredibly strong without being broken. And even if they were broken, they go away after this season. The bonus power of the artifact is a nice little boost, though I think actually grinding the millions of XP you need to get past level 15 or so is a chore that is hard to dedicate yourself to. You sort of just play and see when you level up. But ultimately, I think it all works.
I could keep going. The moon is great. The art design of the entire expansion is great. The customization part of armor 2.0 is great. There’s a lot to like here, and probably a lot more by the end including the not-yet-launched dungeon coming up. But so far, Shadowkeep gets a lot of things right.
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