Destiny 2 The Edge of Fate Review – Fading Light

Destiny 2 The Edge of Fate Review

Destiny 2’s latest expansion, The Edge of Fate, couldn’t be more aptly named. As a studio, Bungie has become the Jean-Luc Picard facepalm meme in recent years. The stakes are exceptionally high, and their fumbles have continued without reprieve. Last year, against all odds, The Final Shape stuck the landing, wrapping up an entire era in epic, satisfying fashion. The pressure the deliver on what’s next must have been immense. There’s something intriguing about Edge of Fate, but it’s buried under the weight of its own expectations and endless baffling changes.

The Edge of Fate explores time, perception, and enigmatic deities The Nine. Their immense power seems to transcend even that of the Traveler. Time and space are bent and manipulated, and there are moments I found myself getting excited for where the story might lead. Free of the clutches of the Light & Darkness storyline of the past decade, they could have really pushed the boundaries. But, be it because of deadlines, overbearing management, or overly cautious decision making, the pipeline ultimately produced a paint by numbers with few standout characters or plot moments.

A Whole New Era

Newcomer Lodi joins returning faces Ikora and Orin for the story beats, and the melodrama is laid on thick. Line delivery goes too far, and a baseline of why I should care about any of it is sorely missed. Equally missed is consistency, with Ikora Rey’s voice actor being replaced here, and a grab bag of nicely done CG cutscenes starkly contrasted with static characters and unvoiced text boxes.

But Destiny 2’s core has always been the gameplay. Snappy shooting, cool powers, high mobility, and the most satisfying head shots in the industry. These things are all still here. The core mechanics feel awesome. Secondary to those things, and limited mostly to Dungeons and Raids, are palette cleanser mechanics. Jumping puzzles, mechanical puzzles, that sort of thing. Puzzles work in Destiny specifically because they break up the cycle of core mechanics, and make a return to ripping head shots feel great. Edge of Fate puts palette cleansers front and centre, and boy oh boy, it does not work for me.

All the Gimmicks

Edge of Fate has a few gimmicky new mechanics: Matterspark, Mattermorph, and the Relocator. I actively disliked all of them right away, and by the end of the campaign I never wanted to see any of them again. The problem is that all the puzzle mechanics here are of the ‘Gotcha!’ variety. What I mean is, it was usually immediately obvious what to do. But, gotcha! The gimmick activation spot isn’t here. It’s somewhere else. Wouldn’t you love to search the area you just came through looking for one or all of those things so you can press square and then race back to the place where the puzzle is?

I didn’t love it the first time, and by the end of the campaign it was painful. I was thinking about why exactly it bothered me so much, and the answer is there isn’t much else to latch onto design wise. Missions are almost exclusively fetch quests, with combat arenas linking puzzles together. The Final Shape showcased the creative and technical chops Bungie became known for and it just … isn’t really here.

Kepler, the new location, is fine but lacks standpoint features. Locations don’t feel unique, and I was often staring at the map trying to figure out which similar tunnel was the right one this time. The inhabitants of Kepler, the Aionians, are an interesting introduction, but they’re used exclusively as ‘press square to start’ markers with minor plot implications. Maybe there’s more coming for them? Not having Xur factor in somehow seems like a real missed opportunity, even if only to build some additional baseline lore.

More Impenetrable Than Ever

I’ve been playing Destiny 2 since the beginning, and without doubt, I’ve never felt quite so lost as I did with Edge of Fate. It’s obvious a lot of effort went into trying to streamline the experience, but at the same time it has never been so repetitive and grindy. Now, Destiny has forever had an accessibility and UX problem. This expansion makes it worse. The new Portal set up gives quick access to a few of the new things in Edge of Fate like solo and fireteam ops, as well as the expansion location. But the old Destinations screen still exists, and lacks any of the new content. Early on, I spent a few minutes confused about how to actually get to Kepler. Turns out, that’s the one destination that’s on the Portal screen.

Elsewhere, rewards for completing activities are unnecessarily complex and often too many layers deep. Consumable items exist to reroll event parameters, and I wanted to take literal notes while trying to understand what outcomes my choices were effecting. Destiny 2 is a loot game, and the chase is part of it, but the changes have made it hard to know if activities are likely to result in that sweet sweet loot.

Half an Idea

I’ve rewritten this next part about 12 times trying to succinctly capture what has changed mechanically, and it’s a fool’s errand in the context of this review. So, I’m going to stick mostly to how the changes impact playing Destiny 2. In short, old gear – even stuff I farmed over hundreds of hours – isn’t really useful anymore. New high tier items drop from high difficulty activities, but growth is absolutely glacial. I ran out of interest in the Portal activities long before approaching the power cap (which has been reset).

Weapons and armor now have two tier ratings outside of rarity – the old masterwork system, and the new tiers that indicate how good the gear piece is. Higher difficulty = higher tiers. Armor archetypes are now a thing, allowing a player to turn any class into a tank or a glass cannon with the right pieces, and with set matching bonuses. It’s nice to have options to pump up my preferred Warlock’s health for solo missions, but at the same time, I don’t see much need to play the other classes anymore.

Everything’s been thrown into the blender, and I’m just not sure who Bungie were trying to excite with this release. The changes feel like half thoughts, hastily jotted on a whiteboard in a panic.

Fatigue Inducing

Writing this review exhausted me. I was hoping a new saga of Destiny 2 might get me excited for what’s next. Instead, I’m tired. The skill to make cool stuff still exists at Bungie, but it’s being catastrophically misused. Design and mechanical changes need to be more thoroughly considered, and the entire player base needs to be brought along for the ride. If Bungie leadership is reading this part: please. Give your people the time, space, and freedom to create something incredible. They have the capacity, and they need your support. This franchise can find its footing again, but Bungie needs to get out of its own way to do so.

**PS5 review code provided by the Developer**