Destiny 2: Lightfall Review: A Mixed Bag of Success and Failure

Living games that have been around for a while can be challenging to manage and expand in new directions. A game like Destiny 2 must satisfy a wide range of masters after so many years, game modes, previous adjustments, and distinct audience segments.

The most recent expansion for Destiny 2 brings that challenge home. Since the original game’s release in 2014, a narrative arc has been unfolding, and Lightfall is the penultimate chapter. It falls short in a few crucial ways, including as a narrative.

But as a gradual development of what has gone before, it makes a lot of significant improvements. The plot of Lightfall is convoluted and poorly explained, which makes for a weak initial impression. Tonal nods to 1980s action movies mostly fail, trying and failing to muster a lighthearted atmosphere at odds with the impending end of the world.

That tonal error is dramatically made worse by a new core character and vendor, whose dialogue is even more annoying than a collective lot of early Destiny 2 leads. The story ends with little payoff and returns players to the opening cinematic after several missions that tease significant revelations.

Neomuna, the city on Neptune, is vibrant but lifeless and sterile. It lacks the spirit of exploration and discovery that distinguishes the best places in the game.

The far-off planet does, however, contain some enjoyable combat locations and activities, such as lively public combat areas, new enemy configurations, and the most lethal non-boss enemies the game has yet introduced, in the form of the Tormentors – a great challenge, whenever they appear.

The majority of what the rest of the expansion has to offer gradually takes away the bad taste that Lightfall’s unsuccessful campaign left behind. The new Strand subclasses are difficult to understand at first but end up being very rewarding and strong.

The best way to describe the expansion of playstyles made possible by strand abilities is to say that they make the battlefield more mobile and controllable. Even though some systems still require improvement, significant quality-of-life enhancements also make a significant difference.

The much-anticipated approach to loadouts is great; it allows you to set up multiple builds to switch between on the fly for both function and appearance. For those who are new to building crafting, a new approach to mods is simpler to understand.

Shadow share a tweet about Destiny 2: Lightfall: “It’s so funny to me that Lightfall is getting such negative reviews, and is meanwhile driving the highest player numbers we’ve seen in years. Yes, the story wasn’t the best. But Lightfall as a whole is an amazing expansion and makes Destiny 2 a better game.”

It's so funny to me that Lightfall is getting such negative reviews, and is meanwhile driving the highest player numbers we've seen in years.
Yes, the story wasn't the best. But Lightfall as a whole is an amazing expansion and makes Destiny 2 a better game.

— Shadow (@ltzShadow) March 15, 2023

The ability to modify and experiment is much more enjoyable than it was in the past thanks to changes to how artifact unlocks grant new abilities and ongoing additions to each subclass’s options. Though they are both welcome additions, the new commendation and guardian rank systems feel too restrictive and prescriptive to be useful.

Guardian ranks call for overly specific tasks that fall short of their stated goal of expressing a player’s experience and expertise. Additionally, while commendations are a fun idea that encourages better community expression, in practice players primarily just spam them without thought.

The campaign performs significantly worse than other endgame and investment-focused activities. The exciting hidden quest for the Vexcalibur exotic is one of the stellar extra missions that offer fresh difficulties and settings.

On that note, several fresh exotics significantly enhance the sandbox experience, which makes me eager to find them. The most recent raid features an intriguing core mechanic and a distinctive visual palette that combines natural and technologically infused looks into a single aesthetic.

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The fresh seasonal material is interesting and entertaining, concentrating on Earth’s last line of defense against invasion and destruction. I might have found the campaign uninspired and the game’s renowned difficulty to be a grind with enemies that are bullet-spongy.

A game this large, however, has more to its expansion than just the first act. Lightfall creates some compelling potential for an exciting year of adventure ahead, both in terms of the story and the gameplay.

Despite some setbacks, Destiny 2 keeps improving in its efforts to satisfy a wide range of players with various needs. While Lightfall is inconsistent, any missteps shouldn’t be enough to dampen players’ enthusiasm for future adventures or their excitement about the epic’s impending conclusion over the coming year.

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