Bungie has now decided that the unpopular Year 1 DLCs for Destiny 2 no longer need to be purchased to play Forsaken. The community reactions range from “disgrace” to “you’re just looking for something to complain about.”
This is what happened: In the last letter to the community, Bungie admitted a mistake. In the past, they found it very hard to do so, but they are now able to.
They say: A month after the release, Bungie now sees what went well and what didn’t. It is too complicated to start with Forsaken because Guardians need the base game Destiny 2 and the first two expansions “Curse of Osiris” and “Warmind.”
Therefore, starting October 16, the two expansions will be tied to the purchase of Forsaken. They no longer need to be purchased separately.
Guardians who were able to play Forsaken before October 16 and therefore own the DLCs will receive a veteran package. This is scheduled to arrive in early December.
Joy on reddit, more criticism on MeinMMO
How the community reacts: In the forum reddit, the community mostly reacts positively to the change. They don’t even make particularly high waves there.
The majority is happy about the shaders and generally considers this a right and reasonable decision. Only a few voices of discontent emerge.
€40 wound and 10-cent ointment
On our site, Mein MMO, the community views this significantly more critically. The post about the change has 370 comments and 41 direct reactions. Of those, 21 are “angry,” 4 “sad,” and 7 “funny.” Only 4 reactions are “good” and 2 “awesome.” 3 are apparently surprised.
What the opposition says:
- Marki Wolle says: “The shader and the tiger emblem are a remake from D1 – these little devils. Yeah, but the €40 pain can be well tolerated with this 10-cent ointment on top.”
- Even harder, HansWurschd: “Logical step. It was clear it would come to this. However, I didn’t expect it this early.” and in a second comment “[…], absolutely calculated and fundamentally disgraceful. What I just wanted to say: I’m not surprised. But it doesn’t make it any better.”
- vvV AmNesiA Vvv says: “Smells of desperation and bad numbers. But the principle behind it seems very cheeky and brazen to me.”
“I don’t understand the excitement”
But even on MeinMMO, other users view the directional change positively. They consider Bungie’s decision a “discount,” which is common. In some form, games always become cheaper after release – that’s how Destiny 2 also becomes cheaper.
What the pro-people say
- Paulo De Jesus says: “When you have nothing to complain about, you just look for something. I wish the people who are now buying the DLC well. I could have waited until it got cheaper. But I didn’t, because I wanted to be there from the start.”
- Patrick BELCEL says: “For my part, I really don’t understand the excitement. Forsaken has been out for over a month now on October 16. Discounts always happen when a game has been on the market for a while.”
Who is hardly affected by the change and who is particularly hit?
The best-case scenario: Many users might actually not care about the change because they already purchased a “big” edition for Destiny 2 at release and therefore have owned the DLCs since 2017. The purchase decision was long ago. For them, this change has hardly any impact, except that they will receive some shaders and exotic emotes at the beginning of December.
The worst-case scenario: The worst-case is a user who bought Destiny 2 at release in the Standard Edition but was disappointed and skipped the two DLCs.
If he has now been drawn back to Destiny 2 through the strong September, he might have purchased the two DLCs for expensive money in the last few weeks and now feels he could have saved €40 if he had waited just a few more days.
What should Bungie have done to ensure no one complains?
The best solution: Some developers go so far as to offer to refund the purchase “retroactively” when they make such a decision.
They then say: Okay, if you’ve bought the DLCs in the last 30 days, you’ll get your money back.
This would certainly have been a graceful solution for Destiny 2, but probably would have involved a lot of effort.
But it leaves a sour aftertaste: It’s definitely the right decision to tie the DLCs to Forsaken. But Bungie could have made this a lot smoother – ideally, they should have made this decision already at release.
It is clear, however, that currently, this is really a criticism at a very high level regarding Destiny 2. A year ago, there were entirely different accusations against Bungie. They were stumbling from problem to problem.
In contrast, Forsaken runs quite superbly:
