Destiny 2 is slowly arriving at its end, in a period for live-service games of deep transition. Today it is absolutely difficult to build up a product capable of making players return after a long period of time, giving them the last DLC or new experiences. Even the most revolutionary products, such as Helldivers 2, have demonstrated that a little error is sufficient to kill your entire success. A name which remains always at the top of this kind of productions is, without a doubt, Destiny. The creature of Bungie, despite all the problems and crises it faced in the few years behind us, continues to develop its narrative and lore, adding new co-op activities and showing players the return of iconic Esotics and Characters. The introduction to the last chapter of the war between Light and Dark, Into the Light is its name, is a wonderful preparation season whose narrative work mixes together nostalgic elements and new grounds granted by The Witness. Now, I know that the new PVE modes haven't been the most appreciated by the public, turning them into the only flaw I have noticed inside Into The Light, but I am not the kind of player which focuses on grinding and obtaining the best a period of contents could offer so it didn't affect my experience in a so deep way. I would prefer to highlight a return to the discovery of emergent narrative, with singular missions on every planet and new secrets whose Easter eggs reminded me of the most emotional and captivating moments of the first game of this universe. We are observing a new bond between real life expectations, theories, discoveries and community interaction with the events lived inside the game. If Destiny maintains this same philosophy also with The Final Shape, we will experience the best ending a videogame has offered in a long time.

Destiny 2 Into the Light is the return to that kind of interaction with the entire universe created by Bungie we have tried inside the first project. Secrets, Esotics, Theories and In-Game Events and communitarian cutscenes. All elements of a strong uprising of a waited ending, with even the less interesting activities as secondary things if put side by side with the enormous expectations set for The Final Shape.

Gameplay: 5
Game Design: 5
Technical Feature: 5
Narrative: 4
Protagonists: 5
Villains: 3,5
Multiplayer: 4
Score and Music: 5
Artistic Feature: 5
Atmosphere: 4
Emotional Impact: 4,5

Final Verdict: ⭐⭐⭐⭐1/2

"I've seen enough. I'm calling this one."

What's there to say? They added horde mode, re-released a suite of series-favorite weapons, introduced the first "shiny" weapons to the franchise, gave lore-heads some solid content, added a sort of "boss rush" mode for endgame content, opened all but one old expansion to anyone, and made one of the fan-favorite characters the face of the whole affair. Oh yeah and all of that was free.

Bungie swung for the fences here because they had to. With the final announced annual expansion just weeks away, they needed good word of mouth. So they're fixing and offering things that should have been done a long time ago. I won't act like it isn't great having the current in-game quality of life but to know it's all a last-ditch effort to pass the vibe check for The Final Shape's victory lap leaves a weird taste in my mouth.

I'm a Destiny mark so I'll play the new expansion, but I don't know anyone who is excited for what's next for Destiny after TFS. Myself included.

At times, Into The Light feels almost pornographic in its deluge, showering us with rewards and explosions like the good puppies that we are - seemingly fated to drown in this bottomless loot pool brimming with returning fan-favourites and collector's items now shaded in precious gold and retrofitted with killer double-perks. Onslaught is an absolute banger, while Pantheon acts as the kind of pyrotechnical freak circus you can only cook at the top of your game - because make no mistake, Destiny in its present state is Bungie at the peak of their game. Both of these additions speak their respective truths :

One, nobody does a horde mode like Bungie. And two, no first-person shooter will ever work the very concept of boss fight within subjective/narrative confines like this franchise has for the past decade, times and again, by imagining new ways for a Tall Guy™ to interact with our faces. Whatever happens next to Destiny won't suck it all away into singularity, at least not until the servers run out and we all smash our computers to smithereens.

Dream's end in a month's time.
I think it's cause for some last rites and celebrations.

Filling the extended gap created by The Final Shape's delay, Destiny 2: Into the Light presents an array of content to bridge the remainder of Season of the Wish into the launch of the upcoming expansion. Granting the requests of many players, this free update finally introduces a true horde mode activity, returns two of the game's best Exotic missions, reprises 12 of the greatest weapons in Destiny 2's history, adds a limited-time raid boss rush, and more.

Onslaught is the main focus, with 10-wave and 50-wave variants - the latter of which has a Legend difficulty option - and takes place across two PVP arenas and the Mothyards patrol zone from the Cosmodrome. Complete with purchasable defences that can each be upgraded, various mechanics, bonus objectives, and boss fights, Onslaught quickly climbs its way to one of the game's stronger activities that feels easily replayable. The concept is fairly simple, but it's also nice to have something that's not mechanically complex, yet still challenging and rewarding all the same.

The draw to keep running this activity is the re-introduction of 12 iconic weapons in Destiny 2's past, many of which have been long requested to return. In their updated versions, not only do they come with a new Into the Light themed paintjob and Origin Trait, they also have some of the beefiest perk combinations to-date. Combined with what Final Shape is bringing, it's feels like quite a bit of power creep, but that also feels right for this particular moment in time.

An element that makes them stand out more is their limited edition 'holofoil' variants that can only be acquired before the release of The Final Shape. These come with a unique aesthetic via an ornament and two perks in each column to choose from, giving you a greater chance of getting a perfect roll, but also potentially reducing the number of weapons you need to keep for the perk combos you'd like, if you get super lucky of course.

Whilst the limited time aspect of these is something that's been debated, especially with such rarity, there was a direct path to each of these, just not a guaranteed god roll. Of course, the FOMO kicks in if you wanted a god roll, meaning you had to grind before the release of The Final Shape.

Whilst the FOMO could be considered a negative, I'd argue the bigger issue is that Bungie doesn't often do this kind of thing. Sure, the limited time and rare nature of them is something that artificially extends playtime, but I've long said rare items like this are healthy for the game. The rarity and unique look is what made them sought after, and rewards like it help you stand out from the crowd. You have this in other ways with certain rewards from high-end content, with gear such as Adept weapons and Raid Exotics, but there's long been space for rare and low drop rate items, and this is arguably one of the best implementations yet.

Personally, I didn't have the time to get a god roll of each - something that will no doubt bother me in the short term - but I'm hopeful we'll see more of this in the future, so that there's chances to get newly released weapons in a rare and limited-time variant. I hope Bungie isn't afraid to continue this, even if there's some pushback.

Alongside Onslaught, Into the Light features Pantheon, a boss-rush activity where you face off against a slew of raid bosses to earn unique emblems and host of raid gear, including Adept weapons and Exotics. With four tiers, each lengthier than the last and culminating in a fight against a different Raid boss, there's a high difficulty ceiling to the top end of this activity that poses a solid challenge for experienced players. Much like the rare variants of the Brave weapons, this is an activity that's important for Destiny to include, and whilst it's going away with the launch of The Final Shape, more high-end content like this is good, and part of what makes Destiny special.

The last few key features of this update are the returning The Whisper and Zero Hour Exotic missions - back with craftable versions of their associated Exotics and reworked secrets - as well as three new PVP maps.

In terms of the Exotic missions, they're honestly some of the best content in the game's history, combining Destiny's best elements to create a memorable and challenging mission. Having them back in the game with updated rewards and secrets is great for preservation, but also fun to have new reasons to return to this content.

As for the PVP maps, this has been a long awaited addition, and hopefully will set a new cadence for PVP content releases. Taking place across the three most recently released locations, these maps bring new life to the player versus player sandbox, and seem to have been met by a good response from that community. To me, it's just been nice having new arenas to fight in, and I hope this is part of a continuing PVP focus from Bungie.

Beyond these headlines, there's not much else to discuss in regards to Into the Light outside of a neat chain of side quests where you search for the robo-dog Archie across the game's various destinations, as well as a few other rewards you can earn via Onslaught and related triumphs.

Ultimately, as a free update it's brilliant and has done a great job at revitalising the game and getting people excited for the upcoming expansion. Playercounts have spiked and remained consistent, pre-orders for the expansion appear strong, and sentiment is in a much more positive place, setting The Final Shape up for a solid launch. As we reach its release, it's all up to this expansion to deliver, and we'll see on June 4th how it all pans out. I'm confident, albeit cautiously optimistic as ever with anything Destiny related, but there's hope and that's something there was very much a lack of following Lightfall's launch.

It all comes down to this, and very soon, we'll finally be able to play this long-awaited expansion. Just like the Paul McCartney song said - hope for the future.

Pantheon is an amazing challenge for people who already like raiding. Unfortunately for the casual player, its going to be fairly impossible to do 8 encounters in a row while 20 under level.
Onslaught is extremely boring unless you like shooting ads and killing mini bosses for an entire hour, but the rewards are fun.
The new crucible maps are fun but the state of the crucible isn't, still props i guess.
Several renewed exotic missions are back, which is great but I wish they wouldn't remove them to begin with.

Bungie always does their best work when they're on the ropes. When Curse of Osiris brought D2 one bad step from closure they started to impress past what anyone expected. Little things began bringing back hope during Warmind; such as the Whisper mission and weapon sandbox rework shortly before Forsaken launched. Forsaken wowed the community to no end, sparing no expense to create the best expansion we would ever see. Arguably, Lightfall has brought community sentiment even lower than it was in Osiris. Sentiment was already bad since season of Plunder, and Lightfall expectations were sky high. Lightfall was the peak steam player count on D2 because of the promise that this was their "Infinity War moment." But bungie fumbled a bag so big that it seemed they needed a miracle to solve it. The following seasons struggled, unable to bring back the players lost in Lightfall. But Bungie always cooks when they're on the verge of defeat.
With the delay to Final Shape came 2 promises: We would get a free update in the empty space, and Final Shape would deliver additional content made to Wow again. Into the Light has launched and seemingly done the impossible, welcoming back players who left while delivering free content which has been unanimously enjoyed.

Onslaught- The new wave-based activity compared to tower defense and CoD Zombies. Pretty fun on Legend difficulty and feels highly rewarding. The Brave weapons are a great selection of reprised fan favorite weapons, however I have to mention 3 in particular are bad choices. Succession and Forbearance are CURRENTLY AVAILABLE in their respective raids and have no reason to be in the brave arsenal. Hung jury is also currently available and has been reprised 3 previous times, making this the 4th version of hung jury in D2. Those weapon slots could have been used for far more deserving weapons such as Breachlight and Dust Rock Blues. Perhaps they could have used some D1 weapons like Longbow Synthesis, The Wormwood, LDR 5001, The Hacksaw, Grasp of Malok, Party Crasher +1 and so many more.

Pantheon- A raid boss gauntlet activity to test teams on their skills in a slightly more difficult environment than the usual raid. Some small changes are made to each encounter, mostly adding new threats while doing mechanics. Rewards mostly chalk up to free adepts on a weekly lockout and an emblem for doing each version. I like it, but I'm waiting for harder weeks where difficulty gets up to the contest modifier. I do not recommend this for players who have not done the full raids, as it breaks up the way raids are intended to be played and doesn't give the best first experience.

Map Pack- This is what I was excited for the most, and these maps delivered hard. Super fun to play on some new maps, and they're all made far better than the ultra-huge maps we've been rarely getting. Europa, a Pyramid, and Neomuna were all long overdue for maps, their environments are gorgeous and needed to be added to the crucible. All of them flow really nicely and bring a breath of fresh air to crucible. It's hard to pick a favorite between them because I like them all for different reasons. This is going to keep me entertained for a good while.

Returning Exotic Missions- The Whisper and Zero Hour missions are back, and while I won't be doing them too often, it's fun to revisit. Having Whisper return at this moment is really fitting, as it was the mission which brought back hope during Warmind and now it is returning at another pivotal moment. SO glad they are showing some work into bringing back vaulted content. This is great for players who never got to run these amazing missions.

On top of all of this there are some great announcements. Most expansion and seasonal content is currently free to all players. Weapon sunsetting is being un-done, making all weapons available to be used again. A new enemy faction and a new subclass are also being added to final shape, making it seem much more likely to be an amazing expansion.

Into the Light is the first time I have been given substantial enjoyment in Destiny in... a loooong time. And to think all of this is completely free. Super happy to see positive community sentiment surrounding the health of destiny. Let's hope bungie can keep this up without reaching the low points in curse of osiris and lightfall again. I urge you to try out the game again if you are interested, this is absolutely the time to do it.