A story that began in 2014 when Destiny first launched comes to its climax with the launch of the Final Shape. I anxiously booted up Destiny 2 by 10 AM opening day, ready to take on the witness and its forces, however, my adventure wouldn’t start until two and a half hours later, when we finally beat the “server boss” and entered the game. Although, Bungie had a rough launch day with widespread server issues, they managed to pull off, in my opinion, their greatest DLC that they have ever launched. This review isn’t going to be a play-by-play of the campaign, however, the opening mission for The Final Shape laid out a ton of information for the story, some of the new enemies, the new Prismatic Subclass and new supers.
The Final Shape starts with a cinematic video giving the player a recap of events that led to this final showdown. I would be lying if I didn’t say that I got teary eyed as the cinematic took us back to when our ghost resurrected our guardian and started our journey so many years back. We are then transported to the present day and a vision of the Witness attempting to enact the Final Shape. This is the first time that we hear Keith David as Commander Zavala due to the untimely passing of Lance Reddick back in March of 2023. Keith did a great job of taking on the roll, but there were moments that I imagined Lance’s distinct voice.
The Final Shape introduced some changes to the game experience. The biggest difference is depending on the difficulty level you choose, there will be an amount of revives a team gets during certain encounters, more shields, health and aggressiveness from the bad guys, and of course, more loot. The guarantee of being a light level of 1960 by the end of the story is extra important due The Final Shape’s new raid, Salvation’s Edge. It’s crazy to think how far this story has come, remembering a time when the max light level was 30.
I’ve got to take a moment to talk about how beautiful the visuals and sound of The Final Shape is. Throughout Destiny’s tenure, Bungie has always done an exceptional job of bringing these worlds to life both audibly and visually. The attention to detail that the team brings never ceases to amaze me.
The campaign consists of eight missions broken into 34 steps. Throughout the campaign, the Witness speaks directly to the guardians, attempting to break their will and join the witness in finality. The team at Bungie crafted a beautiful world to tell the story. The climax of the campaign brings the guardians face-to-face with the Witness for the first time! After the fierce battle, the Pale Heart opens up completely for the player. Guardians gain access to the new Overthrow public event, which is a series of puzzles and killing enemies to reach a big boss fight. The variety is nice and keeps the event fresh.
For the first time in Destiny history, the raid released three days after the campaign released. Salvation’s Edge was definitively the hardest raid that had ever come out. The first team to clear the raid took 18 hours and 51 minutes, making Salvation’s Edge the longest raid completion in Destiny history. Upon the first raid completion, the final mission opened called Excision. Another first for Destiny, this 12-player mission has the guardians facing the witness and ending them once and for all. Having the mission open to all guardians with matchmaking was such a special moment. Vanquishing this god-like boss with fellow guardians was the cherry on top of a beautiful DLC that concluded the Light and Dark Saga.
The Prismatic Sublcass blends Arc, Solar, Void, and Strand abilities. These subclasses allow for a ton of customizing when building out your character. The Prismatic subclass inherently comes with the ability to use Transcendence, giving guardians enhanced abilities, damage, and regeneration. On top of that, each class has a unique grenade that combines multiple elements.
Being a Warlock main, their new super, Song of Flame, is a solar based super that makes the warlock radiant, making their melee ability overcharge and their grenades become a sentient Spirit of Flame that seeks out enemies. Along with those abilities, your allies gain increased ability regeneration and damage resistance, with scorch applied to their solar and kinetic weapons. The Hunters’ new subclass is called Storm’s Edge. It’s an Arc super that allows the Hunter to hurl an Arc dagger that teleports the Hunter followed by a whirlwind strike upon rematerializing. The Titan’s new Super is Void based called Twilight Arsenal. The Titan throws Void axes that pull enemies in and cause an explosion that damages and weakens enemies. The thrown axes can also be wielded by the Titan and their fireteam.
The Final Shape also introduces five new weapons. Still Hunt, the sniper rifle that turns into a golden gun, Khvestov 7G-0X an old weapon makes its triumphant return. Microcosm a new trace rifle, the preorder Fusion Rifle, Tessellation and an old favorite, Red Death Reformed. Another major change came in the form of the Pathfinder. The Pathfinder system consolidates bounties, patrols, and weekly vendor challenges. It’s a pleasant change from the flying to different vendors on different planets to pick up bounties individually.
The team at Bungie have decided to move away from seasons to episodes. Episodes will consist of three acts. Each act will last six weeks, which will consist of new storylines, quests, activities, and rewards. The first episode, titled Echoes, launched a week after the campaign launched on June 11. Echoes gives players a look at life after the Witness and what lurks in the shadows as the defeat of the Witness has cause a power vacuum. The release of the first episode brought a two-player co-op mission that rewards guardians with a new exotic class item, which have multiple perks from existing exotic armor pieces. The addition of these exotic class items, greatly expand the customization and builds that can be created for guardians.
My biggest gripe came from the launch day server issues. One would think after ten years and numerous major updates, Bungie would have come up with a way to combat server issues on release, unfortunately that is not the case and players struggled. By the evening the serves were stable other than the occasional “contacting Destiny servers” error.
After a tumultuous year that saw The Final Shape pushed back from a February release date to June, I think the consensus was that Bungie had to knock The Final Shape out of the park. To me, they hit a grand slam! The love and attention the team from Bungie put into The Final Shape resonates throughout the DLC. A beautifully crafted conclusion to a story ten year in the making. We laughed, we cried, we fulfilled our Destiny.