With Destiny 2: The Witch Queen and the corresponding seasons in the rearview mirror, the Lightfall expansion has big shoes to fill. Improved storytelling, new game modes and the seasonal content that followed made The Witch Queen expansion a great experience, and Lightfall does not reach the high bar it set. The recent Destiny 2 expansion introduces major changes in gameplay, an exciting new subclass to play and a ton of fresh exotic gear for your arsenal, but overshadowed by a disappointing campaign and a lifeless Neptunian objective that make it a disappointing combination.
Lightfall wastes no time preparing the ground and takes place shortly after the devastating events of Season of the Seraph. After a brief slideshow narrated by the silky voice of Lance Reddick’s commander, Zavala, everyone is on deck when the witness finally makes his long-awaited arrival in the solar system to action the traveler. Starting with the opening mission, the action unfolds at a frantic pace as a new legion of the shadow of the cabal, led by a reincarnated cal, heads towards Neptune and you hitchhike by your side to avoid a doomsday scenario.
Bungie has talked several times about adopting an 80s action movie vibe for Lightfall, and this influence is felt all over Neptune’s main setting, Neomuna. From a neon-lit city and a training montage while mastering your new powers to the introduction of a cast of characters that includes analogues of loose-barreled space cops, maverick recruits and grizzled veterans a week before retirement, Fall of Light proudly wears its not-so-subtle inspirations.
But at the same time, the campaign has the depth of a live action movie on VHS. The story is frustratingly vague as you chase a paracausal MacGuffin, experience slightly enhanced space rhinos, and face emotional moments that seem hollow and undeserved. Lightfall has an exciting start, but if you have experienced all eight missions of its campaign, it looks more like the unsatisfactory narration of vanilla Destiny than a memorable action picture from the 80s. After nine years of promises of answers and searching for all imaginable avenues, Lightfall is essentially tipping the ball to the rest of this year’s seasonal content and the final.
Much of the story revolves around the veil, an object of immense power that you will pursue throughout the campaign and which is considered the most important artifact in the universe. However, the reasons for this are not explained. Calus, who became the youngest student of the witness, is still gorgeous and now looks like a Pacific kaiju adorned with armored kitchen appliances. Despite all this, he ends up being nothing more than a hedonistic lead sponge who falls far below the Witch Queen’s Savathun, the gold standard of the great villains of Bungie’s sci-fi sandbox. Unfortunately, after being built as the next big pressure to Destiny 2 throughout the Haunted season, Calus is treated as a sacrificial henchman in the service of the witness, rather than as a grandiose conqueror that fans had come to know, love and dislike over the years.
The Legendary mode, which significantly increases the challenge , is a recipe for sweaty palms and hard-earned victories to overcome seemingly impossible obstacles. The new adjustments and game mechanics introduced in Lightfall correspond well to the iconic campaign, which offers several exciting moments that can easily slip into a highlight role. From a spectacular escape through the flagship of Calus to participating in a cabal civil debate that throws everything at you and the cosmic kitchen sink, Lightfall’s campaign is mechanically a fun challenge when you master Strand… even if the narrative drops the ball frequently.
Their new dark underclass, Strand, is introduced without much fanfare and often appears in the campaign as a main source of power barely fleshed out. While the Beyond Light expansion made it difficult to unlock the Stasis subclass, the introduction of the first Darkness subclass at least seemed like an important moment for Destiny 2. But in Lightfall, Strand comes into the picture after digging a random interdimensional wormhole, is barely fleshed out and consists mainly of training wheels that unravel the reality over which you regularly control throughout the campaign until you unlock it completely afterwards.
At least the quests surrounding the Lightfall campaign improve the expansion and give you solid reasons to action with time-traveling finish ing machines. Destiny veterans will be used to this routine, but in the middle the new missions to claim the recent exotic species and the weekly story of the season of challenge s-which is technically not part of Lightfall itself-the story told here is much more engaging and coherent.
