Review: Destiny 2: Beyond Light

Next comes the ammunition, or magazine. Since Hammer-Forged Rifling or Smallbore increase range, for PvE, Guardians will want to maximize their damage output by having to reload less. For this purpose, something like Enhanced Battery is useful for Glacioclasm because it puts more rounds in the magazine. The result is players needing to reload less, and when they do, slotting a Fusion Rifle loader mod or two into their Guardians’ gauntlets can be help

Santa Monica Studios’ Norse-themed sequel to the classic God of War trilogy was breathtaking when it launched. With a sequel planned for PS5, many players are likely to want to replay God of War ahead of time. Load times aren’t terrible on PS4, but switching over to PS5 offers some substantial improvements, especially when booting up the game.

Heading into its fourth year, Bungie opted to release a direct sequel to Destiny rather than another expansion to deliver new content and improve on systems and mechanics in the original game . While Destiny 2 had its issues, many of the new mechanics were welcome improvements that likely couldn't have been added via additional expansions. For Year 4 of Destiny 2 , however, Bungie opted to take a different approach. Rather than releasing a Destiny 3, Bungie expands on Destiny 2 with another expansion, Beyond Light. Promising Darkness-themed powers, a new mysterious world to explore and a new Raid, does Destiny 2: Beyond Light keep the experience fresh, or is Destiny 2 just treading water at this point?


Pull the weapon out, get a melee kill to get five stacks of Swashbuckler immediately for a hefty damage buff, and go to town with this fusion rifle. For the purposes of Destiny 2 permanent PvE changes , Swashbuckler is going to be more useful for Glacioclasm, as the damage bonus stacks can be gained with a single melee kill. Conversely, Rampage stacks can only be gained by defeating enemies with the weapon itself, thereby wasting a few unoptimized shots to build the damage buff. This would be fine with a kinetic weapon, as primary ammo is abundant. With energy and heavy weapons, however, every shot matt
Of course, this wouldn't be a new Destiny 2 expansion without a new Raid and Beyond Light delivers a standout one. Deep Stone Crypt fuses atmosphere, storytelling, puzzles and challenge in an immensely satisfying way. It's the crowning achievement of Beyond Light, even though few players might actually get a chance to enjoy it. After the Raid, there's precious little else to do. As mentioned before, the removal of content has left the remainder of Destiny 2 a shell of its former self. There's less of everything in Destiny 2: Beyond Light, but at least the gameplay is still fantastic. Bungie's gunplay has been spot-on since it first released Halo: Combat Evolved and they've continuously improved it since then. Destiny 2: Beyond Light remains a fun, fluid shooter to play through and will help take your mind off the continuous grind for a bit.


Next, Slideshot is the key. This perk’s primary use is increasing range and stability (mostly range) after sliding. It also partially reloads the magazine from reserves, which is useful if gamers have any special ammo reserves, but this portion of the perk is largely negligible in PvP. Again, being able to get that kill from farther away is beneficial to come out on top, and Slideshot helps accomplish that. The stability increase does not hurt, especially for console us


The second perk Guardians will want for Glacioclasm in PvP is Projection Fuse, which also increases the weapon’s range. The farther away fans can fire this weapon and do some impactful damage in the Crucible, the more likely they are to get that kill and live to tell the tale. Staying far away, particularly for Hunters, is one of the best ways to utilize Glaciocl


With the extended range provided by Hammer-Forged Rifling or Smallbore, and the increased magazine capacity from Enhanced Battery, players will be able to rack up kills at a decent distance and rarely need to reload. This gives them more uptime on more powerful enemies and, thus, increases their damage output. Couple this philosophy with the final potential perk, Swashbuckler (not Rampage), and Glacioclasm becomes a nasty addition to Guardians’ arse

Beyond Light's story ends up somewhat superfluous, with the campaign falling into familiar Destiny storytelling problems. Eramis could have been an interesting villain had the campaign built more empathy towards her. In the end, she's just another generic, mustache-twirling Destiny villain. Beyond Light's campaign boils down to defeating her lieutenants and defeating her, similar to what we already did in Forsaken , except a lot fewer lieutenants and personality. Less interesting describes other elements of the story. After a six-year absence, the Exo-Stranger finally returns, but anything interesting we learn about her lies outside the main campaign. Drifter and Eris Morn are also along for the ride, but ultimately, their presence is negligible. Rather than being active members in the campaign, they're mostly used as set decoration you can interact with every now and again. It also doesn't help just how short the story is, lasting 5-6 hours depending on how fast you can get quality gear. The quest to destroy Eramis doesn't do much to get players invested, but it also doesn't overstay its welcome. It also helps that Bungie learned from Shadowkeep's campaign by cutting out the grinding missions, instead focusing more on narrative missions. It makes for a more entertaining romp than Shadowkeep.