Bungie recently distanced itself from Fate 2s seasonal model for what the developer calls Episodes. These episodes are intended to differ in many ways from the seasons, which delivered weekly narrative beats through a mix of cutscenes and repeatable activities, such as the ability to more exciting individual stories and mix up the cadence in which they are delivered. However, when the first act of the current episode ended shortly after The final form, Fate 2Players were disappointed that very little changed from 2012’s exciting expansion, and Bungie is now trying to make up for that by changing the formula as promised.
In a stream today, Bungie detailed what to expect from Echoes’ second act – which launches on July 16 – and explained that it will be changing how it delivers content after this current episode concludes. Instead of delivering stories one at a time for weeks, as it has always done, Bungie will be releasing all of the story content for the act at once. This means that when the next episode, titled Heresy, arrives in a few months, all of the content for the first act will be released at once.
This rhythm will continue for the rest of the episode. Now, instead of slowly sprinkling out story content for three weeks and then having another three weeks to work through it before the next act, players can now hit the ground running at launch. I’m torn on whether this is a good decision or not. As someone who struggles with the weekly grind and hates coming back for parts of a narrative, I find this move somewhat fitting. Getting everything done in one weekend sounds like a dream come true and allows me to free up more time for other pursuits instead of treating each login like an appointment.
However, I know there is a subset of people who enjoy having a reason to come back regularly. If that’s not the case, it’s easy to get fed up, piss off, and claim the game is dead if it doesn’t get new content for more than a month. Furthermore, releasing all of the content at once feels like a recipe for disaster for the developers, because they’ll very likely have to put up with the game’s fans pestering them every six weeks about a perceived drought.
Yes it’s right, Echoes’ first appearance was a bit of a disappointment. When it released, players expected something – literally anything different – and instead they were treated to what was essentially a redesigned season. The first act of Echoes felt like a boring rehash of the past, rather than the comprehensive evolution of the season model that players were promised. But I’m not entirely sure releasing all the story content at once will breathe life into it. People want the game to feel fresher rather than repeating the same cycle of experiences they’ve been playing for years, and changing the frequency of story highlights isn’t exactly what they want. Really
For now, Echoes will continue the weekly story flow throughout the remaining acts, and who knows, maybe we’ll even learn to love it when the next episode comes out. Bungie has proven to be pretty flexible with its fanbase and usually ends up in a good place after a few iterations, so there’s no way to say for sure whether or not these changes will stick. We’ll just have to wait and see how well it’s received when it’s actually implemented in a few months.
