Destiny 2’s newest expansion, Lightfall, has the potential to be a blast. Bungie’s long-running sci-fi shooter is a massively multiplayer online (MMO) (meaning that most of it is designed to be played with other players called Guardians), but its campaign is fantastic first-person. It’s a shooting game (FPS). You can play all alone.
After much googling, I’ve come to the conclusion that Lightfall is perfectly fine for new players. I’ve always wanted to give Destiny 2 a try, and it felt like the perfect opportunity to jump in while the community was still wide-eyed by the new expansion.
Things started off great. The dramatic opening cinematic sets the scene for Earth to be completely destroyed by alien forces, while the opening mission explains the basics of Destiny. Blink and you’ll miss a lot of the clues that pop up – many of the combat-centric ones are delivered in the heat of battle – but Destiny 2’s guts are pretty simple: look at the aliens, aliens. Find loot and equip it. Rinse and repeat.
If only the rest was that easy. After that obligatory alien-bashing introduction, I figured it was time to dive (leaving Earth) into the latest expansion, but admittedly it’s a minor issue and perhaps soon to Neptune where the world will be rescued again.
Lightfall begins with a quick overview of Destiny 2 events. It can be hard for players to keep up to date with his six-year storyline, but the cutscenes show that Witness-a-kind-of-a-ridiculous, vape Megamind looks like his , you can roll your Guardian with a flick of your wrist. The synopsis manages to convey some basics about why he’s fighting him, but new players are faced with a thorny dilemma, are you playing countless hours of old content? Or are you jumping on something good that you should be able to follow anyway? I don’t think there’s a right answer, but there are just too many new faces and story beats to feel that his everyone-come-it-all approach is entirely true.
Whichever you choose, Lightfall’s first mission involves boarding an alien ship and firing a heavy salvo at Neptune’s invaders, attempting to blow them up from within. Shootouts are kinetic, and despite Destiny’s MMO nature, most enemies feel more like real meat targets than bullet-sponge stat checks. You can dash from to cover and find new angles of attack. Throw in powerful class-specific abilities and a diverse selection of weapons into the mix, and a good time is almost guaranteed.