a very okay expansion. having the moon back was cool, and there was some dope horror elements that were added with this dlc, but a majority of the story is just somewhat filler-y and anticlimactic. the big highlights of this are the raid & dungeon, and eris coming back.

as for the seasons that came after this, the only one that's really note-worthy is dawn: had super cool weapons, super cool armor, a super fun activity, and lots of cool shit. season of undying was just alright, and almight was a whole fuckass season.
Season of arrivals was good enough and a nice step towards what we got in beyond light (plus prophecy was a fucking sick dungeon), but there was definitely quite a bit of downtime in the season while waiting for beyond light.

(Incluido ahora pero campaña terminada hace semanas, lol.)

Mi periplo de casi 90 horas en el momento de escribir este artículo por Destiny 2 me ha hecho pasar por el origen del "Moon's Haunted" en Shadowkeep tras la buenísima campaña de Forsaken.
Y en efecto: La Luna está embrujada.

Empecemos hablando de mi parte favorita de esta expansión: El escenario principal, la Luna, es inquietante y te mete la sensación de que todo está yendo muy mal. El ambiente es fantasmagórico si no es por la negrura del espacio rodeada por espíritus flotantes es por las fortalezas carmesí que se erigen en las zonas más alejadas del núcleo. Y la pirámide en el centro de todo da una vista tan imponente que una vez entras en su recta final no ayuda oír a tu compañero de viaje decir galimatías oscuros.

Hablando de compis, Eris Morn es un personaje súper interesante. No la conozco lo suficiente porque mi punto de entrada se dista del primer Destiny y la salida original de D2, pero las cantidades de lore que he oído (una velita te pongo, Byf) me desvelan a alguien aislada, atormentada por trauma que quiere devolvérsela a la Oscuridad. Eso es lo mejor de Shadowkeep: Es una historia de no dejarse amedrentar por los errores del pasado, en el caso de Eris su tripulación, y acabar con quien usa ese dolor.

Lo malo de la campaña de Shadowkeep es que a pesar de las horas de contenido se hace corta. Parte de las misiones principales una vez se establece el tono general se resumen en dar vueltas, destruir enemigos y reunir componentes de sus almas (qué hardcore) para reunir nuevos componentes de gear formando la Dreambane Armor, que por cierto es bastante flama, o las armas exóticas como el Deathbringer, un lanzacohetes medio orgánico chetadísimo de los wue da gusto usar en Gambit. Buenos exóticos en general, y teniendo las divertidísimas oleadas de Pits of Sorrow que he repetido mil veces por iniciativa propia como las terroríficas catacumbas, no ha sido una experiencia que se me haya hecho pesada, todo lo contrario. Lo único que lamento haciendo esta review es no haber completado ni la raid ni la mazmorra que ofrece Shadowkeep por el momento, espero poder darles un día con un buen equipo.

Así pues, marco esta historia por completada sin descartar volver a los páramos blancos y rojos de nuestro satélite para futuros encuentros. Hora de adentrarse más allá de la Luz.

Decided I would log all the individual eras of D2 as I haven't before but it seems appropriate.

Shadowkeep was a very mediocre expansion, as much of the focus at the time was on the New Light system, cross-save, and the transition to Steam, likely taking away from content. Particularly after the wonders of Forsaken, Bungie just was not able to follow-up with something that would pack nearly as much of a punch. Much of the content that was there, such as the Xenophage quest or Pit of Heresy are certainly good but Shadowkeep overall made me lose interest pretty quickly. Luckily it was followed up by a great season.

Now that time's passed enough I feel more confident talking about this expansion. When I first played it, I dropped it about 2/3 in. I was tired, disappointed, thoroughly washed out of attempting to get into Destiny 2 in any regard. There's a lot to that, combination of feelings of Forsaken being good (but not like, that good. It's weird how venerated it gets but maybe when it's your only piece of good content that's just how it goes), surrounded by friends who were FOMO on Shadowkeep's launch culture, who could never stop talking about how awesome it is. I ended up getting it right before Beyond Light was launching, sort of trying to catch up.

The first mission was a solid tonesetter, getting a bit of my intrigue with some of the imagery and looking visually splendent. I was excited, there was a feeling that they really had found their place with Forsaken and knew what they were doing.

That was wrong. So utterly wrong. The remaining 80% of Shadowkeep is grinding, a strike, grinding, overworld boss bullshit, grinding, a final level mission and a boss. Nothing happens to the story, and pacing is at an all time low again. It reminds me strongly of Year 1 content, but worse personally in that Shadowkeep genuinely feels like it has an idea behind it, unlike those expacs. It drowns itself in familiar imagery of the series, fanservicing alongside its slew of pointless gather a bunch of dead enemies so you can unlock the path forward. So I walked away so defeated, so utterly demolished that I could trust the Destiny 2 community or the friends who tried to get me into this game. They're still my friends mind, but it was not a good feeling at all to feel genuinely gaslit about things about Shadowkeep that weren't actually there (and really, they did lie about some shit I have a grudge about).

Ultimately, over the year following I did actually end up doing the garden of salvation raid and finishing the campaign. The latter honestly wasn't worth it, but the raid was fun. It balances a lot of artistic splendor in its environments while juggling enough good encounters. It's no Last Wish in terms of mechanical difficulty or however many mechanics you're ending up balancing, but it's better telegraphed (other than really one encounter) than most of the raids and it ended up being one I rather enjoyed.

But it's not my selling point for shadowkeep, even on the deep sale it's currently at by the time of writing. I'm hoping with my heart that Bungie finds some sort of footing, or maybe in 3-4 years it has a FF14 style "you have to play this game just for this" expac. I do not think anything here implies that the life on D2's staff is utterly soulless, or that the quality of their work ethic for this game has dropped. If anything they've gotten better with their community and on top of things schedule wise as a whole, it's just that most of the content is deeply not for me and/or awful garbage.

If you do find yourself pushed into playing D2, skip this one. Forsaken is no golden king but it is certainly the best they've got right now and it's not worth putting faith into until they give genuine returns.

absolute mess of a poorly made cynical skinner box on top of one of the most fun shooting of all time and an incredibly fascinating universe/lore. the only high point of shadowkeep was probably garden of salvation, which was absolutely fantastic and one of the most fun experiences in gaming. pretty much everything else though left a sour taste in my mouth.

ive checked back in briefly for some of the seasons, and their habit of trying to string players along doing dozens and dozens of hours of basically the same exact content they have been doing for years just feels worse and worse the longer it goes on. theres also dozens of quality of life things that just seem to never be addressed.

it can just get incredibly frustrating trying to engage with this game for the amount of time the game asks you to. play it, get to the point where you can experience the raids once or twice, and bail.