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0 Breaking the Ice
Community sentiment around Destiny 2, and its developer, hasn’t been the best since the release of The Final Shape expansion. As Act 1 of Episode 2: Revenant starts, is there enough for players to sink their teeth into? Grab your guns and hold fast to your Light, we’re going alien vampire hunting.
Changing of the Old Ways, yes?
Potential story spoilers head for Act 1 of Revenant.
Bungie is experimenting with the delivery of seasonal story content in this episode. All narrative content for each act in an episode will be available on launch week. Previously, story content was bulked out with weekly timegates or monotonous filler objectives. This leads to fatigue with story pacing, especially for those within the lore community. Bungie is hopeful this experiment will allow the narrative to develop more organically, let players take the story at their own pace, and keep them in the action.
Revenant‘s story is centred around the allied race of the Eliksni (Fallen) and their future against the threat of newly risen Scorn. Fikrul has returned after discovering an Echo, an artefact created from the defeat of The Witness during the Final Shape story. Now Fikrul is able to create new Scorn by mutating living Eliksni, rather than just necromancy.
Old friends Eido and Misraaks-kel of House Light join Guardians in the fight, dubbing us “Slayer Barons”. There are also uneasy alliances with Eramis-kel of House Salvation, the shady dealer known as Spider, and a return of Variks of House Judgement. Crow also joined in his first operation as the Hunter Vanguard, and he was keen to fix past mistakes.
Act 1
In Act 1, Fikrul makes it clear that this is personal. Crow confronts Fikrul in one mission, attempting to de-escalate the situation. In some ways, this reads like Frankenstien‘s monster, a callback to classic horror cinema and literature.
Bungie‘s references are clear in Fikrul’s updated character design, namely heavy metal and “vampire lords”. I hope we get to see this intensify in later Acts. Fikrul even deals a blow to our operations, causing significant damage to the HELM – a hint that the ways stories are being told are changing. Don’t worry: Failsafe, the Batadactlys, and even Captain Jacobson the frog are all safe!
Fikrul isn’t the only threat this season. There is a lot of foreshadowing that someone is going to die per the Kell of Kells prophecy. Misraaks-kel is suffering ill-health due to a curse from Nezarec’s artefacts during Season of the Plunder. Variks of House Judgement is teaching Eido as recompense for the Prison of Elders incident during Forsaken. Eramis-kel is currently under custody and would rather face Fikrul in combat than Humanity’s idea of justice. All of them are keeping an eye on young Eido, a scribe and researcher who is seen as a future leader. She is helping Guardians from her apothecary store create elixirs to combat the Scorn and earn new loot.
Exorcise Caution
The story content took me around three hours, with some players reporting times as low as an hour. After completing the Act 1 story, your main focus will be on unlocking elixir recipes and farming ingredients.#
The activity loop is simple:
– Play the Onslaught: Salvation playlist to earn elixir materials. Higher difficulties as well as 50 wave completions give more materials and the chance at better loot.
– Return to the Last City to craft elixir. Higher rarity elixirs require multiple of a type to be made to unlock the next tier.
– Visit Eido to complete minor and major fieldwork. These are short objectives in patrol areas that unlock an upgrade to your elixir crafting and resource gathering.
Changing with this episode is weapons which won’t be craftable. Instead, Bungie is taking influence from the Into the Light update. You can focus on which weapons you want to farm for via an elixir, with community-dubbed “shiny” weapons being available. These come fully masterworked with the chance at double perks in the final two columns.
Unlike Into the Light, there is no unique cosmetic for these “shiny” weapons.
Something New
If you want a break from the loop, there is a new dungeon – Vesper’s Host – marking the return of the Icebreaker sniper rifle from Destiny 1. If Raiding is more your thing, Garden of Salvation’s weapons are now craftable with a refreshed perk pool.
A new Episode means new build crafting options. Act 1 starts strong with reworks to some older exotic weapons & armour pieces. Titans are eating well, I’ve heard good things about Icefall Mantle’s update utilising the Frost Armor keyword. Also, Peacekeepers paired with Huckleberry may be worth a look at.
As for the new, the artefact puts Stasis and grenade launchers in prime placement, with Arc & Void getting minor mentions. Some seasonal artefact perks are able to be enhanced by specific elixirs.
I’m certain that the new exotic grenade launcher – Alethonym – won’t cause any ammo economy issues in the near future (sarcasm). There is also a new Stasis-themed exotic armour piece for each class, which I haven’t yet been able to earn or play with as of writing.
House of Judgement
While Destiny is my ride-or-die timesink, I do so knowing Bungie is currently in a rough state. No single content release is going to immediately turn around the company’s fortunes. The issues are systemic – closely documented and scrutinised by both Sony and the player base.
What Act 1 of Revenant lacks in things to do or their complexity, it sets things up for future Acts in the short term, and thematically signals the changes on the longer term horizon. This is still Destiny but its familiar bones are being examined. Combat is still the same satisfying blend of clean mechanical feedback when firing any weapon and MMO-like abilities. But it’s clearly showing its age as our Guardian’s power continues to climb relatively unchecked outside the most difficult content.
The remedy? The trial of Bane enemies in higher difficulty content, granting PvE enemies unique abilities.
The character and environment of the Last City social space is a massive positive, being familiar to Destiny 2 veterans who played during 2018’s Solstice of Heroes with an Eliksni facelift. Even the shady dealer known as Spider has set up shop again amongst the various market stalls. Finally walking around the place we Guardians have been sworn to protect for the past ten years. Not just reading it in a lorebook or seeing it in a cutscene. In the dark gothic theme, the City provides light and brevity from Fikrul’s brutality. A reason to keep fighting.
Storytime with Destiny
Story delivery and quest progression feel unshackled and less bloated. But feels like the opposite side of the scale when liad bare. It is approachable but doesn’t leave a lasting first impression.
The cure? Blow up the HELM and slowly begin the content transition. From releasing 1 major expansion and 4 seasons running alongside, to 2 major expansion releases (like the Days of The Dark Below & House of Wolves) and 4 free updates (similar to Into the Light) per year. The long-term story aim is to add mystery back into the game as if we were seeing Destiny for the first time. Again.
While the end point of Act 1’s story didn’t feel as sudden as the previous time gating, I do feel a sense that I’ve exhausted things for at least a couple of months. Some of that is self-inflicted, like eating your favourite meal but being so hungry that you don’t take a moment to savour the flavours or textures.
Some will see this as an indictment of current leadership decisions at Bungie, and a cutting of content justified due to a cut in available talent budgets. Forgetting the community collectively asked for change, justified or not.
Personally, in the long term, this may be a blessing in disguise. Sure I’ll need a story recap by the time Act 2 begins, but now I can focus on playing other parts of the game I’ve neglected. Finding fire teams to take on harder content – mainly raids I’ve missed, dungeons, and the occasional round of Gambit.
Hopefully, as a full package—when Acts 2 and 3 have concluded—Revenant can deliver what Destiny has been missing or at least signal a change of course.
As this is a review in progress, we won’t award a medal until all content has been launched.
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