Review: Destiny 2: Shadowkeep

The Seasons of the Drifter and Opulence added new modes such as the Reckoning and the Menagerie, gave lore-fiends interesting stories to chase, and re-introduced fan-favorite exotic weapons like Outbreak Prime, Bad Juju and The Truth. If it hadn’t been for the broken mess that was "The Revelry" event, these two seasons likely would have gone-off without much issue outside of the usual power and weapon balancing.

Destiny 2: New Light comes with all content and activities associated with Years 1 of Destiny 2. That includes Destiny 2, Curse of Osiris, and Warmind. New players can access these campaigns by visiting Amanda Holliday in the Tower’s hangar.

It’s new expansion time with Bungie rolling out Destiny 2: Forsaken this week and with it comes all sorts of changes that might as well be an entirely new game...OK maybe not entirely. Forsaken does change quite a bit, though, and if freshly coming back or starting up these little list of helpful Swordplay Tips should set any Guardian on the right path to taking it easy while enjoying the most of Forsaken; this is not an end all be all just some things noticed in the initial first few hours that will make getting through The Reef and the rest of the galaxy easier when taking down the big bad Uldren.

Destiny 2’s fourth expansion, Shadowkeep, and its most recent seasons have kept the positive momentum going. With the release of Shadowkeep, Guardians got to return to The Moon to take on nightmarish versions of many defeated foes. The main content additions also included two new strikes, one new Crucible map, two new-ish Crucible Maps and the "Garden of Salvation" raid. Shadowkeep also brought with it the reorganization of the Crucible and the launch of "Armor 2.0."

Destiny 2 is now in the midst of the Season of Arrivals, which as itself brought a new dungeon and public event to the game along with near weapons and gear to chase. So far it’s looking like a decent seasonal update and will likely serve as a good prologue to the major expansion, Beyond Light, coming this fall. Bungie has promised great content coming with Beyond Light (including the return of Hawkmoon!) as well as the "vaulting" of locations like Mars and Mercury. Seeing previous paid content get "vaulted" is concerning, but it should be fine so long as it comes back from time to time as has been promised. That issue aside though, the future is once again looking bright for Destiny 2. Let’s hope it stays that way.


Trials of Osiris has returned to Destiny 2 this season, albeit with some mixed reviews, but none the less rewards players with triumphs and the Flawless seal for a variety of completions. Going flawless awards players with Trials specific weapons as well, so players should win frequently in order to add them to their arsenals. While most of these triumphs for the Flawless and Conqueror seals are labeled "available only during the season of the worthy", these seals will not disappear and might merely require different Triumphs to complete them in further seasons ah

Those hoping that the Bungie-Activision split would result in decreased monetization are in for a rude awakening. Destiny 2 pushed things too far, but Forsaken managed to make things a bit fairer. With the release of New Light and Shadowkeep , however, monetization in Destiny 2 has been taken to a new, confusing level.

Probably the biggest albatross hanging over the entire expansion, however, is the lack of anything new. Despite some additional areas to explore and a fresh coat of paint, this is a map players already paid $60 to explore back in 2014. Nightmares are just reskinned versions of enemies we've already fought and they don't behave any differently. Two of the three new Crucible maps are remasters of old maps. The new Nightmare activities are against bosses that players have already fought hundreds of times. The new Strikes and Raid are excellent additions, but you don't even need to own Shadowkeep to play the Strikes. For $34.99, players should expect more and Bungie should have provided plenty of new content rather than rehashing older material.

Unfortunately, there’s almost no way to earn these items through gameplay. Random tiers on the Battle Pass (we’ll get to that) drop Engrams that contain some of this gear. Other than that, players need to rely on two currencies:

The prime example that comes to mind is The Black Armory from the "Season of the Forge." This was something built up as offering players a special kind of new weapon to chase via a new kind of public event. Both of these claims were true, but unfortunately the forge events wound up being overly grindy (and poorly balanced at first), and the weapons largely weren’t worth the effort. Successive seasons have had similar struggles, but not to the same degree and were largely successful.


The third Destiny 2 dungeon, the Prophecy Dungeon has a recommended Power Level of 1040 , and some of the enemies have Power Levels of 1060. Before starting the dungeon, rank up your characters to the max Power Level to increase your chances of walking out of this dungeon al