The Final Shape expansion for Destiny 2 is under a week away and I for one am stoked. Nearly 10 years of Destiny storytelling is ready to come to a (hopefully) glorious end, but with all the new stuff we'll be seeing, what is there to really look forward to in The Final Shape?
The Ending We Deserve
This will be the finale of the tale of Light and Darkness, starting back in 2015 with us awaking on the highway in Russia and taking us all the way to now, as we resurrected the spirit of an evil dragon just to take us where we need to go.
The Final Shape will see us finally confront our great benefactor and curse, the Traveler, and journey into 'The Pale Heart'. The Witness, the greatest enemy we've ever faced and the whole reason we're in this mess to begin with, plans to enforce his perfect vision of stillness upon the universe, and we're gonna have to do our damnedest to send him packing.
This is, in my opinion, the single biggest thing to be excited for. I began my Destiny journey when I was 15 years old, and now coming into the end, I am 25. I finished high school, college, went to university once and failed, then went back and graduated. I've had jobs and relationships, fun and grief, and all the while Destiny has been there slowly coming to an end. The efforts of millions of Guardians are coming to fruition, and if that isn't something to be absolutely buzzed about, I don't know what is.
New (and old) activities in The Pale Heart
The Pale Heart, the area we'll be spending most of our time in this upcoming expansion, is shaping (ha) up to be a real visual treat. We'll be confronted by landmarks of our journey so far, such as the highway where we first awoke all the way back in 2014 (or more recently for the New Lights amongst us), and the very literal Ghosts of our past, all twisted into new horrors to face and navigate. But apart from the outstanding design direction, The Pale Heart has some other things we should get excited about.
In IGN's hands on impressions, they briefly mention new public events, lost sectors, and even patrols. Whilst these may at first seem like a given, and entirely unexciting, I would argue otherwise. New types of these events come with virtually every expansion, but sadly they all tend to follow a similar formula. Patrols are never really new or exciting, there's just... more of them. And the same goes for public events, with them all typically focusing on killing some kind of boss or defending some objective on a more than generous time limit.
With The Final Shape, however, there's a real chance for some new life to be breathed into these long-standing facets of our day-to-day gameplay. With new public events come new rewards, and with the new enemy types coming with The Final Shape in the form of the 'Dread', they'll be fresh in a way we haven't seen in some time. Further, with new patrols come new reasons to explore this esoteric new locale, and delve into its secrets and mysteries.
Whether or not they will be any good is yet to be seen, but it's worth some measure of excitement at least. We often forget the little touches in all the grandeur of campaigns and exotics, when there is so much human touch we filter over. I myself am guilty of this because, for the longest time, I've never gone out of my way to explore the new areas we've been given (aside from the times I've had to for missions or exotic quests). I want that to change, and with the exceptional design of The Pale Heart, and some chances at some fresh twists on old content, it just might yet.
End Game Content Changes
Destiny 2 is taking an interesting approach to both the finale of the story, and how it works in relation to the main campaign on offer in The Final Shape this time around. Typically, Destiny expansion campaigns have always had 'the big bad', and while fighting them in the campaign has happened often enough, it's typically not until the raid that you actually go out and defeat them for good. You can look to Destiny 1 for examples of how all this typically plays out. The first expansion for Destiny 1 was The Dark Below which ended with us fighting Crota, Son of Oryx. So, in 'Crota's End', the raid which dropped shortly thereafter, we went and finished him off.
However, Bungie understands that with The Final Shape, things can't quite work that way in the long run. Raids are prohibitively difficult and hard to organize for many players (even I with my many years' experience haven't done them all). Organizing five friends is one thing, but working with five strangers is another. And then in addition to the logistical nightmare Raids present, they're also just really hard. The puzzles are tough and typically require great communication and skill, and combat encounters are lengthy and challenging. (My very first completion of Leviathan from Destiny 2 took six hours).
In a post to Reddit in April, Bungie explained that while the final fight would be done in the raid releasing three days after the release of The Final Shape, it would first require completion of the main campaign and some post-campaign content, and in addition to this, there would be a way for non-raiders to experience the final fight for themselves sometime after release. Rejoice!
The Prismatic Subclass
One of the big selling points of The Final Shape, as it has been with previous expansions that added a subclass (Beyond Light with Stasis, and Lightfall with Strand), is of course Prismatic.
Details on how exactly Prismatic will work are of course scarce until we can all get our hands on it at release (if you're really itching, we did a breakdown), but the concept is deeply interesting: a combination of our Light and our Dark abilities wielded at the same time, with new mechanics for using and managing this combination.
One thing we do know is each class will receive a Prismatic-specific grenade that will combine two of the pre-existing elements we have: Hunters will receive the Hailfire Spike, which combines Stasis and Solar; Warlocks will receive the Freezing Singularity, which combines Stasis and Void, and Titans will receive the Electrified Snare, which will combine Strand and Arc. In addition to this, all other class abilities will be available to you with Prismatic. For example, my Warlock could have the Incinerator Snap melee in combination with the Void Blink jump, and then whatever super I want.
The possibilities with this one are seemingly endless and I cannot wait to get in there and find something that absolutely rocks and yet offers absolutely zero combat potency whatsoever. (I'm really good at that.) Of course, we'll have to be wary of Bungie's history of releasing wildly imbalanced subclasses, and simply cross our fingers that we'll have a solid launch of this very exciting new subclass.
And that's a breakdown of some things you should be excited about going into The Final Shape in Destiny 2, but feel free to let us know what you're excited for. While you're here, check out some other Destiny pieces we've done to help you prepare, like our explanation of the Loot Pool for Root of Nightmares, or our breakdown of the best Last Wish weapons! Whatever you need, we've got you covered at Pro Game Guides.
Published: May 30, 2024 08:09 am