10 years ago we launched Destiny beta on PS4. It was an exciting time as console multiplayer capabilities were rapidly expanding into live service, a term that didn’t have quite the same implications as it does now. There have been bold claims of half a billion budgets and ten-year plans, and to top it all off, ex-Halo devs actually he had a tight first-person shooter in hand. But now we’re at the other end of those promises with Destiny 2: The Final Shape, the final entry in the meandering saga of Light and Darkness. And you know what? The B*stards really nailed it.
The Final Shape is a confident encapsulation of everything Destiny hoped for. Whether it’s the refined first-person combat, the insane building potential that a new subclass brings, or the narratives that shine a light on characters that have been there since the beginning. Longtime Destiny fans will be smiling from ear to ear as fan favorite characters return, old locations are revisited in new lights, and the narratives from previous expansions The Witch Queen and Lightfall come together in what can best be described as Destiny’s. Avengers: Endgame.
Destiny has always had one foot in its past – that’s what makes its rich heritage so interesting. For the past ten years, we’ve heard stories of light-bearing legends and terrifying villains. And while we’ve entered that legendary status ourselves, having slain countless alien foes, we’ve never felt like we’ve truly stood alongside the likes of Commander Zavala, Lord Shaxx, Ikora Rey, or the multitude of revered Guardians we worshipped. met over the years.
The final shape changes it. Built across this trilogy of expansions, The Final Shape’s story finally puts us at the forefront of some truly legendary acts. We take on The Traveler himself and take the final step to take out The Witness, the catastrophic being behind the great collapse and the embodiment of The Darkness we’ve been fighting since the very beginning. You can immediately sense the stakes, even as we make our harrowing trek to The Pale Heart, the expansion’s new setting.
It’s a much more focused narrative experience, whether through the game’s excellent CGI cutscenes or the linear map design that keeps us pushing towards The Witness’ monolith. You’ll even get a warning if you try to deviate from the campaign, which Bungie claims was designed to be played from start to finish. With this approach, The Final Shape is easily the most engaging campaign Bungie has released, with a serious collection of great moments for longtime fans.
Nostalgic baiting is a major problem in all art forms, but the callbacks to places, characters, and even musical cues are never derogatory or cheap in The Final Shape. It all looks like a well-deserved trip down memory lane where you can finally share the battlefield with some of the game’s most iconic characters. Whether you’re delving into Commander Zavala’s wavering faith, the feud between the returning Cayde-6 and The Crow, or maybe running into Savathun once more.
There’s something for returning fans at every turn, culminating in a final showdown that closes the entire saga with an explosive showdown that will only bring each from Destiny’s shared past. If you’ve been there from the beginning like us, it’s a really emotional experience. After all the highs and lows of Destiny’s run, this looks like a victory lap.
For those more interested in shooting aliens than the reasons for shooting them, The Final Shape will get you there, too. Prismatic is a new subclass introduced with this expansion that allows you to take aspects, fragments, and abilities from each of the five subclasses you’ve acquired over the years. If you want to mix Stasis shurikens with the Strand grapple and Solar’s golden weapon, you can do that. Prismatic feels like it almost breaks the game with how powerful a build you can create. It’s the best power-fantasy shooter we’ve ever played – something that’s been true for years, but now thanks to Prismatic, it’s on a higher level.
We’re sure fans will still love to specialize in specific subclasses, but Prismatic is Bungie opening up the toy chest and letting us go wild. We conjured up so many goosebump-inducing moments while playing through the legendary campaign, purely through the kinetics of first-person shooters, movement, and abilities. Bungie has always been a master of first-person shooters, but here it really shines.
Everything goes with The Final Shape fierce with its ecological design. Destiny has always gone to great lengths to create epic vistas from the icy plains of Europa to a rust-soaked spaceport. The setting of The Final Shape doesn’t evoke the same sense of place we often find in Destiny, but that’s because The Pale Heart is all about calling back to locations from the game’s past and giving them a dark twist. Each new area is associated with oddities, whether it’s giant ghosts sculpted into the environment or hands and arms replacing traditional building structures. You can tell that Bungie had a lot of fun designing this space, and it’s definitely the best the team could have.
When you look at the Traveler who beat the campaign, the big question looms over him: what’s next for Destiny? Everything is building towards that, but we still have another year of content lined up. Dropping the quarterly seasons, Year 10 will tell three unique stories for Destiny, which it now calls “episodes.” These will focus on Vex, Fallen and Hive and it already sounds like an exciting year for fans. We don’t expect to reach The Witness levels of threat anytime soon, but we’ll be waiting with bated breath to see what happens to the franchise next year and beyond.
Conclusion
Destiny 2: The Final Shape feels like a promise fulfilled. We can’t help but think back to all those late-night sessions exploring the iconic nooks and crannies of this vibrant sci-fi universe, going through all the ways of lore to help make sense of it all. And now, despite all the ups and downs, we have a heartwarming end to a decade spanning the Light and Dark saga, bringing all those memories together in one big celebration. Destiny 2: The Final Shape is the hope and dream of every other live service game. It’s a testament to Bungie’s unwavering commitment to an engrossing saga that defied all odds and did exactly what it set out to do. This is for the fans.