This previous weekend, I sat right down to convey an finish to a narrative I’ve been following for the most effective a part of the final 10 years of my life: Bungie’s Destiny saga, instructed throughout two video games, myriad expansions, seasons of living-game content material, and lots of crushing highs and lows, got here to what has lengthy been formed as its first correct finish.
It resulted in a method that was maybe symbolic of those 10 years I’ve spent with Future—a sport that I’ve adopted ever because it was breathlessly mentioned as the next game from the those that made Halo, all over to the numerous instances I ended and began taking part in once more irrespective of how insistent I used to be that no matter newest arcane design change or lackluster content drop had didn’t hook me was the factor that may make me put it down for good. By which I imply, in equal elements sentiment and perplexed frustration.
The Closing Form, the sport’s newest growth, launched early final week, and I used to be having fun with it within the second—with its narrative targeted intently, for the primary time in years, explicitly on the bonds of friendship between the closest factor Future has needed to most important characters within the type of Commander Zavala, Ikora Ray, and Cayde-6, the emblematic leaders of the Guardian Vanguard, as they ready to face the Witness, this historical villain teased via years of esoteric lore and premonitions. However when it climaxed with what was primarily an enormous cutscene of your participant character and the Vanguard working away from the Witness, merely wounding them fairly than ending the job, primarily saying “please look ahead to the raid to drop” as a substitute of coming to a remotely satisfying conclusion, I discovered myself perplexed.
Had all this been resulting in my character—the identical Warlock I made within the unique Future Alpha, that I remade for the primary sport in 2014, and have performed ever since, for nearly so long as I’ve labored at io9—primarily ready on the sidelines whereas individuals who truly did the sport’s difficult raid content material would get to see the “actual” ending? I’ve by no means had the time, endurance, or frankly the social circle to frequently work together with this specific side of Future’s famously perplexing and troublesome endgame modes, however leaving the cathartic last battle towards this long-anticipated foe as much as a mode that has, traditionally, struggled to draw Future gamers past the toughest of its hardcore, felt like a humid squib.
Fortunately, that wasn’t the case. After the primary groups of gamers raced to be the primary to complete The Closing Form’s raid, Salvation’s Edge, it was revealed there was truly another shock in Bungie’s arsenal. Defeating the raid unlocked a model new, 12-player—the primary of its form in Future historical past—combat that anybody who’d completed The Closing Form’s story up so far may take part in, that noticed gamers and the allies they’d constructed up throughout Future’s story to this point come collectively to defeat the Witness as soon as and for all. And it was nice! It was the large rattling hero second Closing Form’s marketing campaign had lacked; it was full of big fights and the sorts of quantities of enemies, gamers, and allies alike the sport had by no means tried to cram into one house earlier than; it was difficult however not frustratingly onerous. And it was an finish! An precise finish! There was cutscenes and dramatic catharsis and all the pieces.
However as my Warlock and I each sat, considering all the pieces they’d been via within the years since 2014—gazing out on the Traveler, the large, superpower-giving house orb that has mainly been the image of Future for that decade—it was clear no matter was subsequent for the sport after this chapter had lastly closed was going to must chart a troublesome path. Future 2 is a residing sport, it doesn’t simply shut off as a result of we beat up this one large menace, it retains ticking on, even after this second of nice launch. As for what comes subsequent? At the moment Bungie began to raise the lid.
In a quick new video launched this morning, the developer laid out its plans for the subsequent 12 months of content material in Future 2: three new “episodes” that may roll out throughout the 12 months that every give attention to one in all Future’s basic antagonistic factions nonetheless lingering within the wake of the Witness’ defeat. “Echoes” will give attention to the Vex, “Revenant” the Fallen, and “Heresy” the Hive, inspecting the methods {our relationships} with these factions have modified within the final 10 years. In some circumstances, we’ve developed alliances with components of these factions, turning foes into the chums—frenemies, within the case of the Hive, within the type of the tricksy goddess Savathun. In others, it includes revisiting areas Future has lengthy controversially “vaulted”—faraway from participant entry in an try to maintain the dimensions and scope of the sport down—and returning to them with new mild and new design sensibilities discovered over those self same years. Past that? No matter’s actually subsequent remains to be saved near Bungie’s chest, past a nebulous tease for one thing known as “Codename Frontiers,” which suggests discovering new horizons to discover past the photo voltaic system Future has largely been confined in up so far.
It’s a becoming concept for this transitory interval Future finds itself in proper now, ending one climactic saga and sowing the seeds for no matter’s subsequent. It’s uncommon to see a sport exterior of this type of residing format truly grapple with what that transformation means for its characters and your self as a participant—it’s one thing one in all my different nice MMO loves, Closing Fantasy XIV, has played with because it goes from Endwalker, the growth touted very like The Closing Form was as the top of a narrative a decade in the making, and now onto Dawntrail, the approaching begin of a brand new saga. To have Future construction itself round revisiting factions, locations, and mechanical concepts for the way in which the sport is definitely performed as this residing world, and seeing simply how far it’s come on this second, appears like each a fantastic endcap to what’s been skilled and a fittingly Future concept: to at all times iterate, re-explore, and redevelop because it’s tailored and survived a decade of challenges.
If The Closing Form represents the apex of what Future 2 has been able to up to now, going again to those components with new mild—metaphorically and narratively talking, with the defeat of the Witness now not clouding our heroes and their futures—is one full of potential. One that may maybe maintain me taking part in, regardless of myself, for one more decade or extra.
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