In Destiny 2 the annual expansion “Beyond Light” is live. However, players are expressing criticism: There is simply too little loot since Bungie has moved important content to the vault and retired other items. Bungie has now responded in detail to the allegations: They speak of “pain points” that need to be addressed.
What is the sharpest criticism from the fans? After 6 years of Destiny, it has become a ritual for hardcore fans to criticize a new expansion. But normally, there is a “honeymoon” phase where new content and items entice players. During this phase, Destiny is usually very popular.
Players even had so much to do and farm in the first weeks of the unpopular base game of Destiny 2 that they remained calm. The major wave of complaints started 6 weeks after the release in 2017.
But just a few days after Beyond Light was released, unrest began to spread on reddit. It is said: Despite the honeymoon phase, there are already “terrible design decisions” that are painfully noticeable.
Exactly the things that were sharply criticized by fans in advance are now proving to be painful in practice:
- During “sunsetting,” items were left in the game, but they can no longer be brought up to the maximum power level – the items are “retired”
- In the “content vault,” some popular content is being moved, which can no longer be played for the time being
Too little loot for a loot shooter, too little content for an MMO
Essentially, the criticism is: Destiny 2 is a loot shooter. With Beyond Light, the loot has become boring. There are too few new items and loot that players are craving. The individual points of criticism are:
- Sunsetting has removed 70% of the weapons in the game and has not replaced them
- The “item refresh” with the vendors has not occurred, except for armor. However, even the armors are just reskins of the old ones
- The legendaries that drop in the world are the same as in the last season
- Many items from the paid expansions Forsaken and Shadowkeep are now useless, as they are also affected by “sunsetting.” This makes the items “irrelevant” for modern PvE activities or the Trials
- The Cosmodrome from Destiny 1 is back, but without the iconic loot from back then – the loot cave is missing there as well
Destiny 2 is a loot shooter and an MMO. There is a lack of loot and content to play – this is currently a huge problem
All these problems cannot simply be swept under the rug by Bungie. They want a clear sign from Bungie that they see the problems and are working on them.
The reddit thread listing the problems has now received over 8000 upvotes and more than 2000 comments. This seems to be a criticism that many broadly support: There is too little to do in Destiny 2: Beyond Light because loot and rewards are missing.
The criticism on reddit largely aligns with the criticism expressed by readers on MeinMMO. For the German Guardians, the weapon retirement and the few new items were among the main points of criticism.
However, our readers also mentioned some positive points about Destiny 2: Beyond Light: They largely liked the story.
Bungie speaks of “pain points” they want to address
This is what Destiny 2 says: The community manager of Destiny 2, dmg04, has responded and said: The team is reading everything. They would not sweep anything under the rug.
However, the detailed responses sound rather sobering. As dmg04 says:
- It is indeed a problem that the loot from Forsaken and Shadowkeep is missing. They see it as one of the “pain points,” a sore spot.
- However, there is already loot in the game – such as the exotics that many are now looking for. Europe and the raid also have their own item sets.
- They understand that the loot is being compared to earlier expansions and that some weapons have been removed from the game. They are already working on loot for the further seasons
Beyond Light is a “big adjustment” with the content vault and sunsetting.
The team is now looking into the biggest “pain points” and prioritizing how and when to address them. Some issues will be smoothed out in upcoming seasons, while others will take more time. But dmg04 wants to ensure that all problems are passed on to the team.
Sometimes less is simply not more
What’s behind it: The bitter truth is that exactly the fears expressed by players for months have come true. Destiny veterans protested since day 1 when it was said that Bungie would take some things away from them with the content vault and sunsetting.
Bungie named good reasons for removing loot and content from the game. However, they always said: “Don’t worry, we will replace it with new great loot and content. We will make space for that.”
But at the moment, disappointment dominates due to the fact that the selection of items did not grow with Beyond Light as in previous expansions, but appears to have shrunk significantly at first glance.
Destiny 2 is in a phase of upheaval, and the criticism from the regular players makes it clear: This upheaval is not happening painlessly.
The timing is also unfortunate: Bungie is now removing loot and content from the game that were added in 2020, while simultaneously developing and distributing Destiny 2 alone. Without Activision in the background, they have fewer resources than before. Therefore, expansions do not fall short, as they did back in 2018 with Forsaken.
This is a dilemma that could prove to be a significant “pain point” for Bungie.
Bungie is often criticized for hyping Destiny too much and promising too many “awesome” things. Before the release of Beyond Light, Destiny head Luke Smith gave a harsh reality check. He spoke plainly about what fans can expect from Destiny in the future and what is no longer possible:
The head of Destiny 2 says: “Unlikely that we will ever see anything like Forsaken again”
