Bungie’s latest Destiny 2 showcase was a big blowout for its upcoming expansion, The Final Shape. Though the studio’s been relatively mum on the expansion, which will close out the ten-year story the studio’s been telling since the first Destiny launched in September of 2014, it finally revealed some of its hand, including a new subclass, enemy faction, and an exciting new class item that threatens to uncork the potential of buildcrafting in Destiny 2.
Breaking the game
First up, Bungie led the showcase with the introduction of the newest subclass, which it’s calling Prismatic. Instead of focusing on one element like previous Light and Dark subclasses have, Prismatic is best thought of as Destiny 2’s answer to multiclassing. Players will now be able to use aspects of both archetypes of subclasses simultaneously and it looks fucking bonkers, dude. This is the kind of thing that players have dreamt of, but couldn’t possibly be implemented because it would throw the entirety of the game into chaos (or so some thought). Well, Bungie is going forward with it anyway, and it looks dynamic and chaotic as all hell.
In anecdotes provided by Bungie staff during the showcase, the builds sound absolutely busted. One member of the team talked about slowing down enemies with a Stasis grenade, throwing a shuriken into the group to thin out their numbers, and then throwing another Solar grenade that you can shoot to detonate to clean up. Another combination consisted of unleashing Strand hatchlings, which function like a pet that pursues enemies, while simultaneously throwing out a Stasis turret to effectively become a crowd control machine.
When using the Prismatic subclass, players will see two gauges above their weapons and abilities that represent both the Light and Dark. As you deal damage with Light or Dark abilities, the gauges will fill, allowing players to go into “transcendence” when both are maxed out. Transcendence effectively works like a second super ability that buffs the player. While transcendent, each class will gain a new grenade type that combines two different subclasses, like a Stasis/Void hybrid grenade for Warlock or a Strand/Arc grenade for Titans.
Using transcendence will also restore players’ grenade and melee abilities, which are typically on cooldown, meaning that players can effectively chain the usage of both into a transcendence and then deploy them again to do massive damage. Speaking of, transcendence also grants damage bonuses that stack on top of ones that players might get from other class abilities or existing weapon perks.
The developers described Prismatic as an “advanced subclass where you have more build crafting options, more potential combinations, more fragments than you normally get, more fragment slots to socket than you would normally get,” and it shows.
The Final Shape will also introduce a new exotic class item that steals the perks from other exotic gear and combines them into one super-powerful item. This includes perks for exotic gear that was previously class-specific, meaning that Titans will be able to steal abilities that were previously exclusive to Warlocks and vice-versa. The exotic perks on the class item will be randomized, but Bungie is hoping that the ability to combine them with stolen perks will incentivize players to pursue exotic perks as well as gear in order to make game-breaking combinations of abilities. One developer stated, “We want it to feel a little broken.”
A horrifying new enemy
In last year’s middling Lightfall expansion, Bungie introduced a nightmarish enemy type called Tormentors that functioned as mini-bosses throughout the campaign, and it is building off of this idea by adding a whole enemy faction inspired by them and the Witness, the big bad at the center of Destiny 2. This new enemy faction is called the Dread and they are abominations. I can’t wait to fight them. Among their ranks are a winged “gunbat” called the Grim, which can suppress player abilities with a screech, and acrobatic “melee bruisers” called Husks. Killing Husks “the wrong way” will cause something the team is calling a Geist to pop out of them and pursue players.
Two other enemy types, called Attendants and Weavers, will be able to use Stasis and Strand abilities on the player, respectively. The Weaver in particular will be able to pull players from across the arena, which is one of many firsts among the new enemy faction. It’s been a while since Destiny 2 received an entirely new enemy type, so it’s really exciting to see Bungie go all out on a faction that isn’t some kind of reskin of an existing one.
All in all, so much of what Bungie showed off today is the kind of batshit stuff I’ve wanted from the game for a long time. It is also the kind of content you can really only make when you’re nearing the finish line and want to throw everything you can at the wall. Destiny 2 often feels like a great fantasy weighed down by the realities of having to be a game which needs to be balanced in order to be fun for everyone. All of the chaos on display today flies in the face of that need for balance, but it also looks like it’s going to make for a thrilling closing chapter before Destiny 2 moves into another phase of its life. Paired with the release of Into the Light today, Destiny 2 is at last doing the thing it should’ve done a long time ago: punching the goddamn throttle and refusing to look back.