The Final Shape restores what Destiny 2 has been missing – hope

It was surreal walking out into the Pale Heart for the first time when playing Destiny 2: The Final Shape. It was a moment I’d envisioned for over a decade. As I entered the Traveller, It was a real moment of reflection. 

The first time I ever played Destiny was all the way back at E3 2013 (I know, I’ve been doing this a while). I was among the first to ever play the franchise outside of Bungie, and though I didn’t know it at the time, I was about to embark on a ten-year journey of discovering my favorite game ever made. 

Fast forward a little over a decade to me sitting at Bungie in Bellevue, Washington, playing through the opening mission of the conclusionary expansion. Here I was, on the final stretch in the Light vs Dark saga of Destiny. 

In total, I played around ten hours of The Final Shape at the preview event, and I’ve come away with a lot to say. Let me be clear — I won’t be spoiling any of the story that you can’t already infer from marketing materials. Nor will I go in-depth on things like Prismatic, the Dread, the new exotics, perks, weapons, various UI, and quality of life changes. I’ll save my evaluation of all of that for our full review, which will come after The Final Shape launches and having time to play in a live environment. 

Instead, I think a richer vein to explore is a vibe check. When I walked away from my designated desk inside Bungie, having played well over half of the campaign and a lot of the side activities, what was my overall sentiment? After a 10-year journey to get here, here’s what it felt like to play The Final Shape.

Disclaimer: I was flown out by Bungie to their offices in Bellevue earlier this month to play The Final Shape.

Beyond the Pale

The Final Shape is something that’s exceptionally rare – the payoff of a decade-long story. For as much as live-service games are derided (and with good reason), this expansion is a representation of when it all comes together. We’ve taken a character we made, one who has walked parallel to us in our own life, and are about to wrap up the adventure we’ve been on for a decade. To meet that occasion, The Final Shape has to hit. 

On top of that, the expansion has some goodwill to garner after the disappointment and stagnation of Lightfall’s narrative fumbles. Bungie can’t afford for this final chapter to miss.

From everything I’ve played, I don’t think that’s going to be the case. The Final Shape doesn’t have the luxury that Lightfall did of spinning its wheels for a year. This is about a showdown with The Witness. There’s no hanging around, no preamble, no distractions. You’re going into the Pale Heart, and Destiny’s biggest bad is your final goal. 

This is facilitated in a really fascinating way, as The Pale Heart isn’t designed like any previous Destiny location. Generally, locations are circles. Areas that are linked together and wrap around themselves. The Pale Heart, on the other hand, is all about moving forward. It’s a linear space that directs you towards The Witness and the towering structure it’s erected to try and overpower The Traveller. 

It’s a simple change, but it adds this sense of progression and urgency to the situation. We’re making our way through this location, which many have wondered about for a long, long time. You’ll start in the wondrous beauty of the Traveller, untouched by corruption. However, as you move closer to The Witness, you’ll begin to see the sickness it has wrought. Twisted body parts rise into the skies, imposing superstructures all contort in pain and disgust as Destiny’s biggest villain sullies the Traveller from within. 

For my money, it’s one of the most compelling places ever designed for Destiny 2, with a real sense of progression as you move through all of its areas. It has this emotional throughline no other location has — going from wonder to terror as you progress closer and closer to the Witness. The campaign feels closer to a traditional video game than most Destiny expansions. It’s not a handful of quests that are scattered around, utilizing a circular space as best as it can. It’s a space designed to tell the story of this confrontation — and that makes this feel like a big deal. 

This is the End(game)

The other thing I walked away from the Final Shape feeling was that it all feels befitting of the moment. That sense of closing a chapter permeates every moment of this expansion. Bungie has done a lot here to make this feel like a big occasion. 

The presentation of it all is one of the most striking things about The Final Shape. The stakes are high, and all of the main characters are involved directly in the story. Cayde has returned and developed a delightful relationship with Crow, who both act as guides through the Pale Heart. 

Zavala is also a big part of the expansion, and we get the unveiling of Keith David, who takes over the role of the late Lance Reddick under tragic circumstances. It’s a little jarring as David isn’t trying to replicate Reddick, instead bringing his own recognizable spin to the character. However, this is a moment of crisis for Zavala. In this exact framing, David’s gravelly voice does end up working in the transition. It would have been great to see Reddick see out this chapter, but if ever there was a moment that this could work, this feels like it.

Ikora, Ghost, and the many allies we’ve made over the last few years have parts to play too, making this all feel like a big Avengers: Endgame moment for Destiny 2. There’s also a sense of a larger scale at work here as well. There are big, expensive-looking cutscenes that rank among some of the most striking in the franchises’ history. It’s clear Bungie wants to end this all with a big expensive-looking flourish. It really does help the scale of the expansion feel that much bigger.

That presentation is at least Witch Queen levels but pushed further by having a more compelling space and a greater sense of occasion. From what I’ve played, this is one of the best stories ever told in an expansion, which is good — it needs to be. We’ve been waiting for all these moments for many years, and fumbling them now would be heartbreaking. I didn’t leave Seattle with any such heartbreak. That said, I’ve not seen the conclusion, which will be the moment Bungie needs to stick the landing most.

Now for our feature presentation

As stated, since we’re so close to release, I don’t want to ruin anything. That, and a lot of the specifics of upcoming features have been highlighted in painstaking detail through Bungie’s very lengthy blog posts. I’ll touch on more definitive conclusions in our full review. 

Instead, let’s just go over some first impressions. Here’s a very unscientific look at how I felt about the expansion’s biggest new features after a little bit of play: 

• Prismatic – A fascinating subclass, but a much more complex build process than others. It’s not just about putting on the best aspects and fragments. Instead, you also have to consider the balance of Light and Dark. This provides pushback on how you craft your mixed subclass. However, having Devour, Amplified, Cure, and Woven Mail all proceed at the same time is undeniably powerful. Eventually, the best loadouts will be figured out, but I expect it to take some time to emerge as people experiment with it, weapons, the new Exotic class items, and the artifact. 

• The Dread – The Dread are a welcome addition to the game and feel different from most other enemy classes. The flying Grim add unique verticality while Attendants and Weavers manipulate the battlefield, including you, in ways that really apply pressure. I had one instance where I was burning a Tormentor safely at range, before getting grabbed by a Weaver and pulled directly toward it in a panic-inducing moment. It feels like you’re playing against much smarter enemies than in other factions. These units are able to transform the battlefield in their favor very quickly. 

• Exotic Weapons – The new Exotic weapons are pretty interesting across the board. I played with the Microchosm most. It does big damage but, importantly, acts as an excellent salve for your Prismatic class. Because it’s a Kinetic Trace Rifle, and Kinetic damage helps fill both bars, if you’re struggling to balance your Prismatic class between Light and Dark, it works as an excellent bandaid to help smooth the buildup of what’s lacking. The Khvostov 7G-0X shoots very straight and has application in PvE, though I suspect it might see most play in PvP. I didn’t play with the Still Hunt exotic much, but having a Golden Gun on a sniper is undeniably rad. And yes — it works with Celestial Nighthawk

• Exotic Class Item – I messed around with a lot of combinations and never quite landed on one that was a total knockout. I’m undecided if these will be excellent or a little underwhelming. I did end up using a Star-Eaters and Necrotic Grips combo on the Warlock bond that was great for neutral game, though. With the complexities of Prismatic, this only adds a further wrinkle to buildcrafting that will take time to fully comprehend. 

• New Light Supers – Warlock’s solar Song of Flame is a neat roaming super. You get ultra-powered abilities with a wild solar snap and a bird grenade that tracks enemies. I had a moment of dominance in PvP with it, but I did die several times using it too. The thing I am most worried about in PvP is the new void Titan Twilight Arsenal super. Throwing the axe at enemies is wild and then having your team able to pick up that axe for more spirals fast. It seemed very strong. The Hunter’s arc Storm Edge super did leave a little to be desired, I’ll say. It might take a little more understanding to maximize its use. However, teleporting around by throwing a knife like Captain Boomerang is undoubtedly fun.

• UI enhancements – These are great across the board. The buffs and debuffs changes are much more readable. This is a significant change that makes everything going on much clearer. Most importantly though, they’ve changed the Shader icons. I never thought they’d do it, but they finally made the shaders a good representation of what to expect when you equip them. 

There are lots of other little bits and pieces that mix to make The Final Shape feel like a lot of good decisions blending together. And that really is the key sentiment here — Everything I’ve played feels like a positive step forward for Destiny 2.  

In good shape

The Final Shape is a big moment for Destiny. Arguably, it’s the biggest moment in the franchise’s history. Obviously, there’s the actual conclusion of this ten-year journey, but also the circumstances that surround Destiny 2 and Bungie after the year of Lightfall. The Final Shape has to do a lot right to rectify that. 

And, at least from the 10 hours I played, it’s doing a lot right. Perhaps one of the best things I can say is I don’t have a lot of concerns. The campaign feels big and climatic, Prismatic is a fascinating idea, The Pale Heart pushes the already exceptional Destiny environments to new heights, and there are lots of smaller things that just make everything feel a little better.

I don’t have a total overview of everything in The Final Shape. Bungie is rightfully holding some cards close to its chest. But to add a touchstone, it feels at least on the level of Witch Queen, though with more radical elements. Dare I even suggest there are hints towards the depths of Forsaken here, too. 

Of course, for systemic problems, it will take a lot longer than 10 hours for those to emerge. People need to understand Prismatic, get deep into the endgame, and understand what Episodes are (which I did not get to play) to know if this is one of the all-time greats. I also haven’t witnessed the conclusion of the campaign, the raid, or any story beats after that. I can’t say if The Final Shape sticks its landing, so take my praise with a grain of salt. 

I’ll also say that the campaign missions I played on Legendary difficulty were a touch easier than I would’ve liked. Bungie was very curious about our take on how hard it was, though, so who knows if that feedback had time to trickle down into any adjustments. 

However, I left Bungie’s studios with a real sense of sanguine. That is a massive upheaval to how I’ve felt through a lot of the last 12 months of Destiny 2. The Final Shape feels like an impressive step. It’s one that suggests not just a definitive conclusion to the series’ biggest moment but that this is a development team that still has a lot of ideas and enthusiasm for their franchise. There’s this undeniable feeling that there’s a future for the franchise that means so much to so many of its players. I’ll say openly I got to talk to Bungie developers off the record extensively during the event. Their enthusiasm for the game is something I can only convey in vague platitudes — but it really is there.

The most important thing, though, is that it felt like the return of Destiny’s key quality – the feeling that permeates its world, music, and story. The first thing I felt loading into the Tower in D1 and seeing the Traveller floating above the Last City. The thing that it lost last year but was only smothered, not stamped out – it’s hope.