As hard as it may be to believe, the original Destiny launched nearly a decade ago and quickly garnered a large player base. Rather than build upon that game further, Bungie moved onto Destiny 2 in 2017 as the base model for the series and has been releasing new content for it ever since. While the first two expansions and the original game itself are no longer playable in any form, it has received eight total expansions including the latest known as Destiny 2: The Final Shape.
The End of an Era
Destiny 2: The Final Shape takes in a brand new area known as the Pale Heart, where you are chasing the always slippery Witness that has been around since Shadowkeep and has been a central antagonist of the Light and Darkness saga. The Pale Heart is located within the Traveler itself and is a manifestation of the memories of those lost within it, which leads to some familiar locales showing up in unique ways. This leads to some interesting events such as the revival of fan-favorite Cayde-6, who originally died during the Forsaken expansion, along with plenty of other interesting story beats that players who have been playing Destiny 2 all of these years will appreciate. This story is the culmination of what all the past expansions have been setting up, and offers a very satisfying conclusion by the time you reach the ending.
As with other Destiny 2 expansions, The Final Shape comes with its own story campaign for players to complete, this time with seven full missions. The game is set up to where players who are brand new to Destiny 2 can jump in right after the initial tutorial-like missions when you first start the game. Obviously, those who have played the prior expansions can just hop right into the new Final Shape campaign as well instantly.
Each of The Final Shape missions ended up taking around 45 minutes to an hour, which is pretty common. This really depends on how much exploration you do around these gorgeous locations, and if you get stuck at all. One way you can end up taking longer are in the sections where you have to defeat enemies to find out which emblem you need to touch elsewhere to advance, as selecting the wrong ones can set you back and require you to start that section over again. There were definitely some parts that were much more difficult than others, even with normal difficulty. For those looking for a real challenge, you can take on the Legendary variant of the stages, but you may be in for a tough time if you are not a Destiny 2 master. I will admit that there were some parts where respawning was restricted that took me a few times to get through, though the game never felt unfair at any point. In fact, I thought the level of difficulty was just about perfect here, even though you will still come across bullet sponge enemies that can get a bit frustrating.
Speaking of enemies in the game, Destiny 2: The Final Shape introduces a new enemy faction known as the Dread, which includes six new enemy types. Omen and Attendants create Statis Crystals and try to shatter them to deal major damage to your Guardian, while Harbinger and Weavers use Strand to either suspend your Guardian in midair or pull them towards the enemy. Both of these can be a major problem in battle, as you can easily get trapped and the Omen and Harbinger have a lot of health for you to whittle down and also avoid their dangerous attacks. There were numerous points where the Strand enemies especially caused me some trouble, which led to me having to come up with new strategies that put obstacles between myself and the enemy so that they could not use their Strand abilities on my Guardian.
The dual-blade-wielding Husks do not take anywhere near as long to defeat as the Omen or Harbinger, but they are still incredibly dangerous. That is because just taking them down is not enough, as they will often spawn an energy projectile upon their death that targets you instantly. If you do not shoot it in time, it will hit you and can cause massive damage. This means you typically need to back away from Husks to defeat them, which can prove difficult since they are still trying to always get close up to you to attack. Not only do you have to worry about the ground enemies, but the new Grim enemies take to the sky and look like giant bats. Grim will continually shoot projectiles at you that do solid damage, so it is a good idea to take them down as soon as you can. There are a number of other enemies like the Taken that you will come across during The Final Shape, but these six new enemies definitely added some nice variety to a game that is now seven years into its life.
Taking down these enemies will require just the right weapons and gear, with Destiny 2: The Final Shape coming with an arsenal of useful weapons and new gear for you to utilize. There are plenty of exotics to collect as well, which will take you some time for some of these. A few of these in particular are accessible only by completing the unique Dual Destiny exotic mission, which I wish there was more of in the game. This tasks you with teaming up with someone else and working together with one having a Light subclass and one having a Darkness subclass and having to solve some puzzles to move on.
The Final Shape also comes with a brand new yet still familiar feeling subclass known as Prismatic that lets you wield the powers of Light and Darkness simultaneously. This subclass has a super, melee, grenade, and Aspect slots with different Light and Darkness abilities from all five types of damage in the game. These vary greatly depending on what your main class is too, so you must choose wisely.
Where Prismatic really shines though is with the new Transcendence state that you can enter at certain points, with it being required to defeat some enemies. You will notice a new bar below the Super meter that is split into two sides of Light and Darkness. These can be built up by dealing Light and Darkness damage or using Light and Darkness abilities, but the easiest way is to find these glowing pink and purple areas on the map where you can stand and fill up both bars quickly. Once both bars are full and have met in the middle, you can activate Transcendence by pressing L3 and R3 at the same time.
Entering the Transcendence state is useful in a number of ways, including increased weapon damage and resistance to damage. It also allows you to move at a faster pace with quicker melee and grenade refreshes. Most importantly though it allows you to break special shields on certain enemies that are invincible otherwise. By hitting them once while in the Transcendence state, their special shield will go away and allow you to deal damage even if your Transcendence wears off. Some of my favorite moments were just barely managing to reach the Transcendence refill areas in time to activate and take out the invincible enemies before I was taken out myself.
Even though the title of The Final Shape expansion has the word “final” in it, this is not expected to be the final expansion for Destiny 2, but rather just the conclusion of the ongoing story arc. That being said, the series is shifting from the season model to episodes, however, with The Final Shape consisting of three total episodes. The first of those is known as Echoes and is what players have experienced since launch, with Revenant and Heresy to come at later points in the year.
The game not only has more content to come as the years go on, but there is a lot of content already in the game at launch. The story itself is not even wrapped up in just the seven campaign stages, but rather culminates in the raid that was released a few days after the initial launch of The Final Shape known as Salvation’s Edge. This raid is a first for Destiny 2 as a whole by having six players and requires you to not only complete the seven campaign missions but also to complete the exotic quest afterward and reach the power level cap of 1965. Getting to this point does take some work for sure, but it’s well worth it for one of the standout raids in Destiny 2 as a whole. This ups the difficulty compared to past raids too, which was a complaint people had in the past.
Verdict
Destiny 2: The Final Shape is a fantastic conclusion to this ongoing story arc by offering an abundance of content, brand new enemies, and a respectable difficulty across the missions and especially the final raid, with the only real downside being the connectivity issues that come with any always-online game. There is still more to come in the two upcoming episodes as mentioned prior, but there is no reason why you can’t jump in now to experience The Final Shape as it is now. This expansion is obviously aimed at those who have been playing Destiny 2 throughout the years, but it also works well enough as a standalone expansion as well that players can jump in and enjoy with no prior Destiny knowledge or experience. Even so, those who have not been fans of the series in the past are not likely to change their mind with this expansion.
Score: 9/10
Pros:
- The best Destiny 2 expansion to date
- Satisfying conclusion to the Light and Darkness saga
- Interesting locales and mission layouts
- Variety with the new Dread enemies
Cons:
- A few server disconnects mid-mission
- The initial loading in can take awhile
Destiny 2: The Final Shape was purchased for the reviewer. You can read MP1st’s review and scoring policy right here.