Over the past few years, whenever a new expansion for Destiny 2 came out, I almost always started my review with something like “This is the best Destiny 2 ever.” So when I got into Destiny 2: Eclipse and saw all the planned updates and improvements Bungie had in mind, I figured they would do the same in this review. However, this is not the case.
First off, let’s tell the truth: Destiny 2 is still in great shape, but anyone who expected Eclipse to be the next big step forward for the game will be disappointed, because if anything, we’ve got a step made up…back where The Witch Queen left off. The new features and additions haven’t panned out as well as I’d hoped, and the Eclipse campaign is, if anything, a fill-in arc before the story culminates in Destiny 2: The Final Form next year.
What I mean by that is that the Eclipse story didn’t seem as big and impactful as I had hoped. Given a larger production budget, it feels more like a “seasonal” arc, meaning we’re getting plenty of brilliant action scenes to blow your mind. But the story itself seems largely inconsequential and has a serious problem explaining itself, something that must be a real nightmare for new players. What is the veil and why did we rush into the city of Neomuna to protect it? Who are the Cloudwalkers really? What is the witness and what does he want? And most importantly, the same question we’ve all been asking ourselves for almost a decade: What is the Traveler? It doesn’t answer any of those crucial questions, just telling us where the bad guys are and how some sort of super-powered killer is supposed to pull the trigger. It’s a fun game, but coming from The Witch Queen, it was clearly a step backwards narratively.
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And what about the new Binding subclass? Well, the explanation of how Guardians come into contact with the ability is riddled with plot holes, but thankfully the kit itself is pretty impressive, especially the Hunter’s binding. The mobility, lethality, fluidity, and adaptability make this skill set a fan favorite, even more so than Beyond Light’s Stasis and even some of Light’s original subclasses. However, I will say that Warlock’s Broodweaver doesn’t bring the same level of excitement and is severely lacking in damage, and Titan’s Berserker feels like any other Titan Super in Destiny 2, despite its damage being astronomically high these days.
On the other hand, the enemies you’ll face aren’t too dissimilar to what we’ve seen over the years. Aside from the Tormentors – which are suspenseful and very menacing – the Shadow Legion cabal feels like every other cabal we’ve encountered over the past nine years of Destiny, even if they carry shields of rope and dark pylons to ward them off protect, two mechanics that have minor gameplay implications at best.
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At least the new characters are interesting, right? Well… the truth is that no. Nimbus comes across as cliche and cheesy, and Rohan (spoiler alert) doesn’t last long enough to connect with him or feel even the slightest bit hurt by his ending. And let’s not forget the veteran Osiris, whom Bungie turned into one of the most irritating and frustrating characters in the entire game in this expansion. Its entire premise is to yell at you and put you down while not providing any input or trying to explain the plot or what’s going on, which really feels out of place for the character that Bungie spent years building .
It all seems like Bungie has an idea of where Destiny’s Light and Dark saga ends, and to get there we need to go through one last bit of filler before the action-packed finale. Remember how Avengers: Age of Ultron left you feeling like “something else” was missing but also necessary to bring both Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame together? Well, that’s the same feeling that Eclipse left me with; Instead of a crescendo before the close, the orchestra stumbled and skipped a few bars, throwing everything to the floor.
But while Eclipse’s story lacks punch, Neomuna is a brilliant setting. The cyberpunk city really explores verticality in a way Destiny 2 hasn’t dared before, and the locations and environments it offers are fantastic to behold. The weapons (many of which are re-skins of other weapons) and armor sets also have great aesthetics, and years of refinement to Destiny’s loot and power system shine again in this expansion.
And while it’s not technically a part of Eclipse, but more of the broader Year 6 experience, the UI updates that add more direction and weight to triumphs and personal challenges are incredibly well handled (despite being classified as Veteran, as are my friend who hasn’t played Destiny 2 in two years feels like a kick in the face) even if the new build and mod system is more confrontational. On the one hand I can understand the changes made and see how they benefit Destiny 2 in the long term, at the same time the building kit seems rather sterile due to the amount of mods removed and almost one-dimensional on the one hand today, which is a big step backwards from the end of year 5 – although the build is already confusing for newer players at this point in the game.
While I firmly believe that the next 12 months of Destiny 2 will be fun and filled with narrative loops that explain and cover the questions Eclipse has left for players (some of which will no doubt arrive when the raid begins this Friday), it’s hard to see this expansion as anything but a (minor) disappointment at the moment, at least if you just look at the story it tried to tell. I understand that Destiny 2 isn’t a game that’s going to be a hit in the early days, it never was. But The Witch Queen proved that Bungie, along with all the other quest lines and bells and whistles, can deliver an amazing expansion campaign to keep players hooked in the long run. However, Eclipse is more like extensions Shadow Fortress j Beyond the Light in the way he approached the development of the story.
QFinally, I’d like to add that the exotics are awesome and really hit the mark with that power fantasy, and the new seasonal content seems like a lot of fun, but none of that makes up for the fact that Eclipse promised a lot and just didn’t deliver, its most important aspect: the campaign. Despite that, Destiny 2 is an amazing game and the rest of the expansion is great, but is it the best Destiny ever was? No. Will Bungie manage to correct course? Without a doubt. However, if The Final Form takes the same path in 2024, with a lackluster campaign like the ones we saw in Eclipse, well… there will be a lot of very angry Guardians.
