Given how Destiny 2 has hemorrhaged players since its release last September, it seems almost perverse to name its next expansion, which will also be the game's biggest so far, 'Forsaken'. But perhaps it's also a sign of confidence. According to Bungie, this DLC represents the fruits of months of community feedback (read: fury) over the perceived wrongs of vanilla Destiny 2, and specifically its puddle-deep endgame. We broke down the key features coming with Forsaken earlier today , and the changes on the way as part of the game's second year of content look to be substantial. But will they be enough to turn the game's fortune's around on PC? That's the question put to our writers who are either lapsed players, or in at least one case, still hopeless addicts. Speaking of which… First impressions Tim Clark: Okay, okay. We pretty much all know I'm somewhat of an unreliable narrator on this one, because I never stopped playing Destiny 2, despite being all too aware of the stuff that it had done wrong . But even with that caveat, I have to say that today's reveal surpassed my expectations. The last sizeable thing I wrote about the game was a shopping list I felt Bungie had to do to save it . Versions of a lot of those ideas are going to arrive with Forsaken. Random rolls returning to guns is huge, and rights one of the most ridiculous design wrongs I've ever seen a game like this make. It should ensure that for the grinders, there's always that hope of dropping a gun with perfectly rolled perks. Nine new supers will also inject substantial freshness and greater choice into the subclass skill trees. And perhaps biggest of all, freeing up the weapon slot system so players can create completely bespoke loadouts without having to plink away at high health pool bosses with two primaries is massive. I'm a 41-year old man, so I don't really get 'hype' about anything, but friends… I'm close. And now I'm bracing for what cynic-in-chief (but also secret addict) has to say. James Davenport: As much as I was happy to see the weapon system set free and random rolls make their long-awaited return, I’m happiest to know there’s another raid on the way and that it looks rad. All we know about The Dreaming City is that it takes place in the Awoken homeland in some sort of shifting mountainside temple. Every shot we saw looks like something from a high fantasy book cover. With the promise of more bosses than any raid before and a new ‘living’ structure that will see the raid changed (meaningfully, I hope) over time, I’m so down for Forsaken. But I suspect you guys won’t be sold on pretty vistas alone. There's fantastic sci-fi imagery all over what we've seen of Forsaken. Austin Wood: My immediate response to today's reveal stream was to reinstall Destiny 2 on my PS4, and then begin the arduous task of clearing my hard drive to make room for a reinstall on PC, so it's safe to say I'm on board. I'm interested in the new raid, and especially the new PvPvE Gambit mode, but more than anything I'm excited to have a reason to come back to Destiny and experience all the stuff I've missed while I prepare for Forsaken. This is exactly the carrot I was waiting for. Like a lot of players, I dipped out after a few weeks in the hopes that Destiny 2 would improve while I was away. Tim tells me it has, and Forsaken looks like the overhaul it so desperately needs, so I'm looking forward to putting on the suit again, so to speak. Andy Chalk: Overall, I really like what Bungie showed off during the stream. The back-of-the-box features, like the new raid and the Gambit multiplayer, don’t actually do much for me, but the increased flexibility in character builds, the new weapon loadouts, and new rewards sound really promising. I mean, that’s what a game like Destiny 2 is all about, right? Give me stuff to chase after, and let me do it how I want. I’m not ready to preorder yet, and the reality is that I’m still torn a bit between the parts that I’m genuinely excited for (of which there is quite a bit) and the silly hype weighing it all down. (I’m trying not to be cynical here, but you can stop telling me how game-breakingly craaaazy it’s going to be now. Please.) But I’m absolutely paying a lot more attention to what’s coming in September than I was yesterday. Space bows and new bad guys Tim: One thing I didn't quite parse on first viewing is that there is an entirely new enemy type in Forsaken—The Scorn (or Skorn?) who look like refugees from Rage. I am therefore taking this as a victory in my running battle with Rami Ismail about Destiny on Twitter. Are you guys into them? Andy: Are they new, though? I thought they were just Fallen and Cabal and other such pre-existing flunkies that Cayde-6 had tossed into the interstellar slammer. The Barons look interesting, and I dig the idea of different Barons having different capabilities, strengths, weaknesses, and so forth. I hope the Baron Hunts are fairly structured and formal, rather than the bullet-sponge boss beatdowns we’ve enjoyed so far. I guess they’re going to be bullet sponges, but I’d like to see something a little more involved in the process of getting to that point—a little bit like a public event, maybe, where particular conditions have to be met before they come out for their ass-kicking. That’s not exactly what you were asking though. Too soon to judge the Scorn as a faction, but I hope there’s more to it than just a Taken-like reskin. A Cabal Valus with a neon mohawk and nose ring isn’t going to cut it. James: The Scorn are cool, but they’re also Fallen. Again. Granted, it doesn’t appear that they’re a copy of the existing Fallen archetypes, and that we’ll have some new behaviors to contend with, but I so desperately want to shoot someone besides these guys. When are the evil triangle men coming? This has to be the last time they can remix the same alien race, right? Right. How about those space bows, though? Austin: I am very into the bows, but then, I will play virtually any game with bows in it. I've always loved shooting bows in games, from Dragon's Dogma to Far Cry. It's something about the arc, the satisfaction of leading an arrow just right and watching it fall perfectly into place. You don't get that kind of feedback from bullets. And Destiny already has some of the most satisfying bullets in the business, so I cannot wait to see what it does with bows. Tim: Pretty sure the Exotic bows will be sick. Do the young people still say sick? Austin: No one has taken away my young person card yet, and I distinctly remember muttering "sick" under my breath when the bows were revealed. James: I don’t know where bows fit in Destiny’s arsenal, or how they make sense thematically. Whatever though, if they feel good to use, I’ll take ‘em. Shooting stuff in that game still feels better than most. If Bungie gave us an Exotic rock to toss at our enemies, we’d take it, and it, too, would own. Andy: I have a machine gun. I have a rocket launcher. I have a thing that shoots little exploding hamsters that will literally chase you down and blow your ass 50 feet into the sky. Why would I want a bow? Who am I sneaking up on? It looks cool on the cover, yes, but this is not a selling feature for me. Three shotguns? Sure, we can talk about that. But bows feel out of place. Maybe I’m picking nits in a game like D2, where “looking sexy” is a lot more important than “making sense,” but it’s not a selling feature for me. Tim: I wish they'd bring back actual heavy machine guns.<doc-sep>Destiny 2’s fall expansion, Forsaken, will attempt to breathe new life into the game when it launches Sept. 4 on PlayStation 4, Windows PC and Xbox One. Purchasing Forsaken will net players new abilities to use, a new campaign to play through and new areas to explore. Forsaken will return random rolls, loadout flexibility, weapon customization and new supers. It also adds lots of new features like bows and a new PvPvE mode, Gambit. Thanks to a Bungie ViDoc that kicked off the livestream, players can view all of the changes coming to Destiny 2 in a nine-minute dump. Forsaken will bring players back to the asteroid belt and the Prison of Elders. While Bungie won’t reveal the story until E3, it seems to focus around the Fallen, Cayde-6 and the mysterious Awoken. Here’s Bungie’s synopsis of the campaign, which the studio developed in collaboration with Transformers: Fall of Cybertron maker High Moon Studios: Following years of strife, what remains of the Reef has fallen to lawlessness. You and Cayde-6 are sent to personally investigate the recent unrest. Upon arrival, you soon discover the most-wanted criminals in the Prison of Elders have organized an escape. Beyond the Vanguard’s authority, you’ll pursue these fugitives deep into the Reef. Explore new regions, awaken new powers, earn powerful weapons, and uncover long lost Awoken secrets. The hunt is on. Grid View Bungie, High Moon Studios/Activision Bungie, High Moon Studios/Activision Bungie, High Moon Studios/Activision Bungie, High Moon Studios/Activision Bungie, High Moon Studios/Activision More than just Forsaken is coming in the next year, as Bungie also introduced a new content rollout strategy for Destiny 2’s second year, the Annual Pass. It includes three “premium content releases” that are scheduled to launch from winter 2018 through summer 2019. Destiny 2: Forsaken will cost $39.99 on its own. A bundle of Forsaken and its Annual Pass will be available for $69.99. Bungie and Activision will also sell a Digital Deluxe Edition of the expansion for $79.99 that includes Forsaken itself, the Annual Pass and a set of Awoken-themed in-game items. Activision also said that when Forsaken launches this September, the company will release all of Destiny 2’s existing PlayStation 4-exclusive content on PC and Xbox One. Forsaken In case you missed Bungie’s live reveal, we’ve gathered everything coming to Destiny 2 this fall right here. Forsaken will first bring players to the Tangled Shore, a collection of asteroids anchored together in the Reef. Cayde has been filling the Prison of Elders with enemies, but his plan backfires and fills the universe with previously captured foes. The Fallen will return as our primary enemies, with the Barons — eight powerful foes who escaped the Prison of Elders — and the Skorn being new enemy types we’ll see. Each class is also getting a host of new supers. There are flaming knives, electric beams, and a giant flaming hammer. Bows are also a brand-new weapon type coming to Destiny 2. Players will be able to take on enemy players with laser arrows fired from all different kinds of bows. Forsaken will bring a new kind of mode Destiny 2. Gambit is a PvPvE game mode — it has both competitive and cooperative elements — that takes place in the Prison of Elders, a location that should be familiar to Destiny players. In Gambit, players will take on enemies and collect a currency as they go. Banking the currency causes more enemies to spawn. But you won’t be playing this mode alone. Instead, another team of Guardians will be taking on a similar challenge. You can block the enemy team from depositing their currency, and even jump over to their arena and kill them in select circumstances. Ultimately, it seems that one team is crowned as victors when they kill the final boss first. One of the more mysterious features touched on in this new expansion reveal is that of the Dreaming City. The developers at Bungie described it as being similar to the Dreadnaught in Destiny’s Taken King expansion. The location is “built from the ground up to support endgame content,” according to Activision — including a full new raid. Destiny 2 v2.0 Bungie is also working on plenty of improvements and new features that it will make available for all Destiny 2 players with the game’s version 2.0 update, which is scheduled to launch around the same time as Forsaken. Players will be able to gather randomly rolled weapons — a feature returning from the original Destiny — and employ a more flexible weapon loadout, with Bungie promising the option to roll with three shotguns if desired. While we don’t know much about the loadout or mod system yet, it looks like players will be able to customize what they want to play with more efficiently than in vanilla Destiny 2. Bungie showed footage of Guardians with a power level of 600, although it’s unclear if that figure is final. The studio also showed off a new gear collection feature. It will list all the weapons, armor and other items that players have already earned, and everything they have yet to unlock. The idea, said Bungie, is to tell players how to get the gear they’re missing to fill out their collection. In addition, Bungie plans to roll out a milestone feature that seems akin to the original Destiny’s Age of Triumph. Other new elements that Bungie is promising for Destiny 2 v2.0 in its latest development roadmap include an extra 200 vault slots (for a total of 500), the long-awaited ability to delete shaders en masse, and a new Crucible mode and four additional maps. Plus, power levels will once again matter in Iron Banner and Trials of the Nine, just like they did in the original Destiny.<doc-sep>The Destiny 2: Forsaken reveal event will begin at 9 am PT/12 pm ET today, June 5, bringing us details on what Bungie has planned for year two of its big online shooter and what we can expect in the expansion set to arrive in September. It looks an awful lot like this one will be about the Fallen and will take us to The Reef, home of the Awoken and the Prison of Elders—a place Cayde-6 has been paying particular attention to of late. Should be interesting—watch it with us below.<doc-sep>
Destiny 2 has been getting a lot of flack recently, well since it was released in some circles, and Bungie has been working hard to address the fans problems with the game. A lot of the issue with the last two expansions is there were largely already done by the time Destiny 2 was released so there wasn't a lot that Bungie could do to address the issues. With Forsaken, Bungie has a chance to really change the game for the better. Like the Taken king from Destiny 1, Forsaken is adding a huge amount of new gameplay, story, powers, weapons and essentially altering the groundwork of the base game. Let's take a look at what we know so far and what it might mean for us as players. Find it at Amazon Whats new with Destiny 2? Update 8/30/2018: New Information about Mods With a look at the new exclusive content for PlayStation 4 players, we also got a chance to see the new mod system in action. Over at PlayStation.blog they have a video from the PS Underground Team showing off some of the new content and they talk a little about the Mod system. VPN Deals: Lifetime license for $16, monthly plans at $1 & more Your mods will now be more like Perks you can assign yourself. Instead of being really common and fairly dull, these new mods will allow you to significantly tailor what your gun can do, working in concert with the random perk rolls that you will now get. This feels like a much more powerful system than before and i look forward to seeing what comes of it. Update 8/2/18: PlayStation Plus gives Destiny 2 for free Sony has added the base game of Destiny 2 as part of their September lineup of free games for PlayStation Plus users. This means if you were on the fence about getting Forsaken you can get the Base game for free and only pay for the expansions, saving yourself a little bit of money over the bulk buy you would have needed. Sony has made Destiny 2 available today so you can take advantage of the early access to the new Gambit mode that is happening on September 1st. Here's your PlayStation Plus lineup for September 2018! https://t.co/IbNpaejKK2 Fight to reclaim your Light in Destiny 2, or challenge the gods of Olympus itself in God of War III Remastered pic.twitter.com/ik5hDt2zVW — PlayStation (@PlayStation) August 29, 2018 What is the Forsaken update? Forsaken is the newest expansion for Destiny 2 which seems to center around the Reef, one of the social spaces in Destiny 1 and home of the Prison of Elders. In this new storyline, Cayde-6 has been using the prison to store away some of the worst villains in the Solar System and, you guessed it, they break free. Bungie is describing it as a western revenge story, dark and gritty. On the Bungie Livestream they talk about you being outside the Vanguard authority as you hunt the escaped prisoners down. Bungie is describing it as a western revenge story, dark and gritty, which sounds great, though Nathan Fillion's Cayde-6 is always light-hearted so I'm not sure how that will play out. There are a lot of new gameplay mechanics, one called Baron Hunts, where you chase down and kill the "reverse magnificent seven" as Bungie call them, each with their own special abilities and skillset to test you. We don't know a lot about the Barons right now, or the Scorn nation as a whole. What we do know is a sniper Baron and a melee Baron are key parts of the enemy combatant lineup, which will require some new tactics to take on effectively. Oh my God, they killed Cayde! That's right, everyone's favorite wisecracking hunter is no more. I don't think this should have been in any of the promotional footage, it would have been a far more emotional moment if we had found out about it in the game but it has certainly caused a stir in the Destiny world. Nathan Fillion as Cayde-6 has been one of the highlights of Destiny, with his almost Deadpool like quips and being so close to breaking the fourth wall it will be a shame to see him go. In a recent statement, Bungie did confirm his death is final and not just a gimmick, they want us to feel the emotional connection to his loss all the way through the expansion.