Link to the article: State of the Game: August 2023
Before commenting on this ginormous article, here’s a screenshot from my Steam library taken today, August 3, 2023:
That’s the state of the game for me, personally. I haven’t played it much in recent times. It’s not that I don’t have anything to do in the game. In fact, I have several weeks’ worth of Seasonal Challenges to complete. However, I’ve resolved to gradually cut down the time spent playing this game, and it’s going quite well so far.
That said, I haven’t abandoned this game and its surrounding community entirely, so here’s a few thoughts on today’s State of the Game update.
- For millions of people, Destiny 2 might be a video game that offers them a shot of feel-good brain juice every night, but it’s important to remember that Bungie is a corporation, and Destiny 2 is a product created and supported by Bungie. They are never going to admit directly that the majority of their efforts are spent in maximising the revenue that this product generates for their corporation. Player happiness is essential too, but unless there is a severe threat of a drop in player engagement like we had in Year 1, the corporation’s goal is to continue focusing on maximising revenue. Bungie isn’t evil for doing this, that’s how businesses work. And reading this article reminded me of this once again. It felt like a carefully drafted excuse on how things aren’t that great right now, and why Bungie can’t really improve things anytime soon.
- No mention of the word “Eververse” anywhere in the article! This was no doubt intentional, given the negative sentiment around Eververse receiving frequent content updates, while the core game loot pool has dried up significantly. The excuse about not creating new armor sets for each expansion because no one uses them is laughable, because Eververse gets new armor sets each season! They have committed to releasing a new armor set for The Final Shape though.
- Gambit is dead! Or at least that’s what it feels like from this article. Bungie admits that not many people are playing Gambit, so they aren’t going to invest any more resources to the game mode, beyond reworking one old map (admittedly a good one, Cathedral of Scars) They’re also removing some of the Gambit-focused seasonal challenges and making Gambit optional for the weekly ritual rewards. I wonder if the game mode will survive for more than a year at this rate. I’ve enjoyed Gambit in its heyday but wouldn’t really miss it if it’s gone.
- The power cap isn’t going up in Season 22! I’m glad they confirmed this early, but it’s a weird they’re going one season at a time for this. Why don’t they just commit to increasing the power cap once a year with every expansion? Maybe they want to see even more player data? Anyway, I’m happy that we have three more months of not worrying about mindless power grinding. Just focus on the seasonal activities, check out the reprised raid if time permits, and log off until Season 23!
- New PvP game modes and one new map. I’m not a PvP focused player, so I don’t have much to say about this, but I do feel bad for the small group of players who still play Destiny 2 primarily for its PvP. The company clearly doesn’t want to invest more here when they have a brand new PvP-focused game coming out soon. No one is forcing you to keep playing though, so at this point it’s better to stop getting disappointed and move on to one of the many other games on the market.
- Coming Soon. There were quite a few teases about what’s coming next for the seasonal structure, new player experience, LFG, exotic mission rotator, and so on. However, a lot of news seems to be held back for the upcoming showcase on August 22.
What does this all mean for the community? This update seemed to be a stopgap measure to stem the growing negativity around the game, until the August 22 showcase kicks in the hype around the next expansion. There were a few tidbits of promising QoL changes, but nothing exciting enough to make me want to start playing the game again, or to recommend it to a new player.
I’ll be there on August 22 to watch the showcase and play the new season. I do hope that Bungie manages to surprise and excite its player base again, like it did with Forsaken and The Witch Queen. At this point in the product’s history however, one can only be cautiously optimistic.
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