Say what you like about Bungie's current struggles (and we have), the studio really does give good ViDoc. This morning, as part of an hour-long livestream, Destiny 2 players got their first substantial look at Renegades, the Star Wars-themed expansion that's set to drop on December 2. And if you're wondering just how much Star Wars has been ingested by Bungie's design team, at various points in the video we see a character frozen in carbonite, off-brand AT-ST walkers stomping across the battlefield, and a Sarlaac pit on Mars (which is doubling for Tatooine). Of course there is also much twirling of light sabers. Watch it below:
Regular readers may recall that I was pretty down on having a galaxy far, far away smeared all over my favourite-but-troubled looter shooter. Specifically: I did not want to cosplay as Darth Vader. However, having had a better look at how the crossover is being handled, I have to confess I'm kinda into it.
The set-up is this: A new Cabal faction called the Barant Imperium, who dress uncannily like chubby Stormtroopers, are stockpiling weapons on Mars at an alarming rate, seemingly aided by a member of The Nine, the bickering cosmic entities that provide the narrative thrust for Destiny 2's current saga.
With the Vanguard leadership treating this new threat complacently, the Guardian takes up with The Drifter to work for various crime syndicates, rising through their ranks by doing jobs on what the game calls The Lawless Frontier.
In practical terms, that means completing co-op missions across several planets (in addition to Mars serving as Tatooine, Venus mimics the swamps of Dagobah, and Europa provides Hoth's frozen wastes.) Three types of mission activity are selectable: Bounty Hunt, Smuggle, and Sabotage. Bungie said that players would need to get in, swipe as much loot as possible, and then exfil with it.
Which sounds an awful lot like an extraction shooter, doesn't it? And given the travails of Marathon, the studio's delayed attempt at entering that genre, that might give some pause for concern. Honestly though, I would expect Renegades' missions to be a pretty lite take on the concept, and it does make sense for the studio to be sharing learnings between its major projects.
Bungie also mentioned that players will be able to select from a suite of renegade abilities prior to each mission, which sounds a lot like the kind of 'borrowed power' system that Diablo often deploys for its seasons. The developer did note that these abilities would be additive to your existing roster of grenade, melee and class abilities—ie they don't replace them during gameplay.
As for the Lightsaber shown in the ViDoc, it is of course an exotic weapon—and from the sounds of things it's going to be craftable, because Bungie said players will be able to customize its appearance and perks. It's called the Praxic Blade, after a faction of Warlocks in the game called the Praxic Order, which will operate as Destiny 2's take on the Jedi. Their antagonists are the Dredgen, a group of ne'er-do-wells which already has a ton of lore in the game, and are now being positioned as stand-ins for the Sith.
Elsewhere in the ViDoc, we see classic Star Wars-style blasters, which are going to be a new type of weapon in the energy slot that don't require reloading, but instead use a heat management system. You can also expect [deep breath] the return of the innovative but ultimately unloved Gambit PvEvP concept. It works pretty differently in Renegades, though.
By selecting the 'Invasion' option prior to setting off, you open your crew of three up to being attacked by another player mid-mission, with rewards ramping up accordingly. It actually sounds more like Dark Souls than Gambit, and mercifully if you choose to leave invasion off you'll never encounter another Xenophage-wielding invis hunter.
After the ViDoc aired, and before delving into the new Ash & Iron patch which also went live today, Bungie spent some time addressing the fierce criticism that the systemic changes rolled out with Edge of Fate have received. Amongst a raft of quality of life improvements, the standout changes in the works were:
All exotic weapons and armor will now count as 'featured gear', meaning you won't be at a scoring disadvantage if you choose to use off-meta options.At some point during Renegades it will be possible to raise the tier of a legendary weapon, removing the disappointment of getting a god roll that lacks enhanced perks.We were once again promised more vault space, but given no sense of how much or when. But it's desperately needed now, what with new armor sets raining from the skies.One thing that wasn't touched on was the Unstable Core economy, which I've found absolutely egregious to interact with. These are an entirely unnecessary resource, seemingly designed to throttle players' ability to bring older gear up to relevant power levels. For example, it takes me 11k+ cores to upgrade a single old item to my current power, but you only get ~1k cores per item dismantled, making the process of trying new builds eye-wateringly expensive. (Hilariously, several of the drops on the seasonal reward pass are '25 Unstable Cores'. And no, I didn't miss a zero. Don't spend 'em all at once!) I've reached out to Bungie to ask whether there are any plans to address that particular pain point and will update if I hear anything but a 'no comment' back.
Meanwhile, over on Reddit, there's a thread raging about the fact a much-requested Taken-style animated shader introduced today is locked behind a $20 MTX bundle. It's fair to say there's still a way to go before Bungie wins back the hearts and minds of a good chunk of the playerbase.
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