Capping off the “Light and Darkness Saga” that Bungie announced in 2020, The Final Shape is the culmination of ten years of Destiny.

And it is fine.

No, really the expansion is fine. Completely serviceable, and I find that to be its greatest sin.

Normally, in a review like this I’d never address the consensus, as I find discussing where the majority is at to be pointless as this is a personal review piece of my own thoughts and feelings, but I am left genuinely floored at how people are saying this is one of Bungie’s best expansions for Destiny and the best narrative in Destiny.

I feel like I’m going insane, because The Final Shape is extremely formulaic in its structure and narrative up until the raid completion, where the rest of the campaign was locked behind, and a final 12 player mission to cap off the finale.

Let me explain.

The campaign hook is fairly straightforward, more so than the usual call to action these expansions have: stop the Witness from enacting The Final Shape. When I say there are no narrative twists and turns that leave you on the edge of your seat as beloved characters push back in one final effort against the big bad of the franchise: I am not lying to you o reader mine.

The reason I will continue to commend The Witch Queen as one of Destiny’s strongest narratives is because it delivered on everything and then some. The reveals in that expansion were incredible and added to the deeper understanding of the Hive’s history and it was all in the campaign, minimal lore tabs to piece the narrative together.

The Final Shape does not have that luxury of a tight narrative. There aren't any grand reveals about the Traveler or the Witness (I do not count that fact that a being made up of an entire race has a subsection of itself rebelling against as a reveal) apparent in the campaign and The Final Shape, while made apparent, isn’t felt throughout the campaign.

For as much as I hate Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker and that 2.6 billion dollar movie I will not be mentioning by name, they made their scenarios extremely apparent.

For Endwalker, the Final Days were shown to the player. An entire leveling section was dedicated to the horrors of such an event and made you invested in stopping a cataclysmic event. For that 2.6 billion dollar movie, everyone was dealing with the results of the snap heard across the universe. The entire driving force is trying to undo that event that happened in Infinity War.

The Final Shape, the idea that chaos cannot be stopped or changed, therefore needs to be contained in a state in which it cannot possibly act, is interesting, but due to the inherent nature of said goal, it is impossible to properly show that goal to the player during gameplay or really narratively in front of them, unlike the Final Days which, again, had “gameplay” (cutscenes mostly) reflecting the narrative.

A cutscene at the start of the campaign shows denizens of the Last City getting put into the Final Shape, showcasing the apocalyptic event,as the Earth shifts and moves, but is undone completely by the Traveler still fighting against the Witness.

Nothing ever comes close to this in the campaign. The Final Shape never really occurs in a way that shows but the environment picks it up like some Atlas-like god, showcasing the Witness’s tormented, idealistic goal of stopping chaos with calcified enemies and humans baked into the scenery as you approach the Witness’s domain.

I would have loved it if the campaign started in the Last City as suddenly reality is shifting in and out between the will of the Witness and the Traveler fighting back, but uh. No, no we do not get any of that. So, I end up feeling extremely disconnected between what the goals are and what is actually happening in the gameplay.

Honestly, a lot of my feeling of bitterness towards the fact that we never really had our “losing moment” is because of how atrocious Lightfall and the seasonal stories that followed weren’t about losing, but once again, preparing to face off against the Witness for the second year in the row.

The Witness went inside the traveler, and it did nothing for that entire year, but charged an extremely long cast timer for enacting The Final Shape.

Now that it is here, I was hoping for more dire stakes that showed the end of everything, but no it is extremely self contained to the Pale Heart.

Ok, the overarching narrative is a bit of a bust. What about the characters?

Well, it doesn’t get much better, but it is a slight, noticeable improvement. Equal good, equal bad.

The return of Cayde-6 is handled surprisingly well. Initially, I was annoyed beyond belief, believing it to be a desperate attempt by Bungie to lead the player into a back alleyway before sucking their wallet dry, but in execution, it is much less about nostalgia and more about reopening “old wounds” as the fallen Hunter Vanguard puts it.

In a throwaway dogshit seasonal story, Crow wished for the return of Cayde-6, and Cayde is pulled from heaven back into hell and finds himself stranded, lost inside the Traveler.

Cayde reacquainting with old allies is great. Seeing how Crow went from killer to ally, the reuniting with Zavala and Ikora, and of course meeting the player character again. I do love how it is handled as a somber, bitter moment for everyone as they are forced to confront grief and love at once, probably one of the few actual good moments in the campaign.

His charisma is back, and while some of it is welcomed, some of it is completely obnoxious, and that has more to do with Bungie stepping away from his style for a longtime and having to readjust to the blend of humor and seriousness going on.

Crow has been a great character to watch and take up the mantle of the Hunter Vanguard. He and Cayde are like bread and butter and both get along very well.

Ikora is kind of just there? She’s one of my favorite Vanguard members, but the narrative doesn’t really give her as much agency and really any time to shine unlike The Witch Queen. She just talks to everyone else, not really going through much of her own strife unlike Cayde being brought back from the dead and Zavala… well I’ll get to that.

Zavala’s character asks the question: “what happens when a paladin’s faith is shattered?” A very interesting character study about the blind devotion to a faith that, upon new revelations, is met with frustration, grief, and anger. What ends up happening in the campaign is him coming off extremely annoying.

I’m not sure if it has to do with the writing or with Keith David’s performance, stepping into the massive shoes left by the unfortunate passing of Lance Reddick, Zavala is completely out of character.

There is a way to write a desperate character losing faith and having to reconcile with finding a new purpose, but this was not it at all.

And seemingly by post-campaign, he manages to get over it, but still results in a reckless decision that cost him the life of his ghost.

Speaking of his ghost, Targe, gets a character in-game.

I’ll commend Bungie here and say at least Targe’s death had a purpose and showcasing Zavala’s recklessness, but dear god does it feel so hamfisted and entirely because the plot needed to show that the light could unmake the Witness.

So, that’s most of the big players… oh yeah right. The Witness.

I was never a fan of his design or his goal, seemingly because of how far Bungie had to reach up their own ass to pull out this thing from left field, but we finally got to see and feel its presence without it being constantly teased.

The Witness tempts everyone with their most internal desires, feeding them what they want more than anything in the name of salvation, and each of the Vanguard members go through fighting with what they want.

For the player character, you are kind of just watching everyone go through their grief, until mission seven when the Witness finally addresses you.

That’s when the campaign picks up momentum.

I was really hoping for a Marathon: Infinity-esque meta discussion with the player. Bungie is no stranger to meta-storytelling and it is why I had such high hopes that the Witness and the player character would have a discussion about trivial things in a video game sense, such as rewards and challenges to overcome, the needless sense of violence and destruction.

We kind of got that? Sort of? It was so brief before we struck down the Witness with a sword to chip away at its collective consciousness. I was expecting a lot more, given how there is so little actually going on.

So that’s mostly the narrative, what about what you are doing?

Not much better.

The Pale Heart doesn’t utilize a lot of the environments and theming to allow for set piece moments to distinguish missions one from the other.

The Witch Queen was hyper focused on mystery and it was baked into the campaign. Environmental effects such as the deepsight buff let you go into places not visible before. Puzzle solving was another crucial step that felt appropriate to the Throne World. Sometimes it would throw its hands up in the air and give you a back to back boss fight with an escape sequence. It was incredible and a pinnacle achievement for the series.

Lightfall scaled this back, due to the no doubt rushed development, putting more emphasis on combat than puzzles. The Tormentors were a great addition to the enemy variety, but the overall campaign lacked those 80s action movie setpieces that Bungie was throwing around in the marketing.

Here in The Final Shape, the dial has been pushed too far to the left and this is just dungeon mechanics: the campaign. I was bored to tears at every single puzzle, killing an enemy with a name to find a symbol, callout the symbol, cleanse the symbol, damage the boss, repeat until death. Other times it was to collect motes to bring to a plate, or shoot an aura around a ring to pick up a buff, etc.

There is so little variety besides the variety in mechanics and every mission ending in a health-gated boss fight was very tedious.

There could have been so much more, and the post-campaign showed me a glimpse of what could have been, so I know it wasn’t a lack of ambition, but the hyper focus on mechanics, forgoing set piece moments of that in The Witch Queen made this a chore to playthrough, even on Legendary.

Sprinkled in the campaign were the various factions you have fought before but this time, Bungie introduced a brand new enemy race to the sandbox: The Dread. These units are fantastic, taking what I love about the Tormentors in applying pressure to the player and ramping it up to ten. The Dread utilizes Stasis and Strand to force you to play carefully and methodically, as well as enemy prioritization to avoid getting in situations that would put you in the ground. I loved all the new designs, especially the Grim with their ability to slow you with an ear-piercing blast.

For the player, you gain access to two main new abilities in the campaign: a brand new super and a brand new subclass.

While the new supers are always welcome (Twilight Arsenal my beloved) the real shining star is the new subclass: Prismatic.

Prismatic is a fuse of light and darkness coming together in harmony to allow for very powerful builds that feels like you are breaking the game, but in such a way that is designed to still feel functional. Intentional breaking, if you will.

Bungie has a good design on most of the light subclasses, but for the past two years they have been really cooking.

Strand was a game changer and an incredibly unique power in the toolbox. Suspend, unraveling, and threadlings were amazing additions that felt insanely powerful that no other super was.

Given the three light subclasses, it seemed appropriate that three darkness subclasses would follow.

Instead, Prismatic took its place, showcasing how the Guardian has mastered over light and darkness, wielding both at once.

While I have only really sunk my teeth into the Titan’s prismatic subclass, it feels so good to play. The sheer volume of pickups I spawn between diamond lances, tangles, and twilight axes are so much fun that I feel even more like a one man army than before.

After you complete the campaign, you are launched into the post-campaign. Destiny’s post campaigns include various questlines to sink your teeth into before the raid launches.

While not having the sheer number of stuff to do as Forsaken, The Final Shape’s post-campaign has a good sense of overlapping progression that feels appropriate. Beforehand, it was sometimes a long grind for important aspects of your new subclass or a lengthy post-game to make grinding for other weapons feel better; very minimal narrative threads other than dressing. Here in TFS, there are three aspects: two of them are in the same questline, while one sends you to engage with the Pale Heart destination.

The first is a short questline dealing with Savathûn’s plans in the Pale Heart as well as rallying Mithrax of House Light and Empress Caiatl of the Cabal to our side. Short and sweet, capping off with the unlock of a new exotic sword, the Ergo Sum.

The next is the lost ghost questline with a new character, Micah-10. Here you run repeatable quests unlocking armor and weapons from the Pale Heart, while recovering lost ghosts for Miach. This set is more akin to open world busy work, but the narrative dressing in some of the old locations visiting some of the missions from other campaigns or strikes, was surprisingly welcomed. Destiny has a nasty habit of constant reuse of old content, but this felt like appropriate reusage.

The last noteworthy post-campaign missions are the two respective exotic quests for a golden gun sniper rifle and the prismatic class item.

Wild Hunt was a cute mission showcasing Cayde and Crow’s adventures with it ending in Cayde giving the mantle of Hunter Vanguard to Crow.

The other was a two-player mission that used mechanics of light and dark, ending the mission in a really cool moment that honestly I won’t spoil because if there is anything that needs to be blind going in, it is that.

I think the reason this post-campaign resonated with me so much is because it was having unique mechanics and also felt like there was something to work towards narratively and gameplay. It felt like in these final moments, it was building to this massive push against the Witness than the self-contained campaign of “everyone is miserable, we need to stop the Witness.”

Which culminated in one of Bungie’s best raids.

Salvation’s Edge is an absolute achievement for Destiny raiding, yet I wouldn’t go so far as to say raiding in MMOs as a whole, but fucking hell did they knock it out. Five wonderfully designed encounters and scaling the monolith of the Witness was great. It struck such a nice balance of mechanics, culminating into the 4th encounter of geometry hell (positive). What an absolutely amazing achievement for this team that has already been doing extraordinary and memorable encounter designs.

While the raid was excellent, the final mission was not.
Excision was the worst possible way to end the Light and Darkness Saga, and this is zero hyperbole.

I hate this mission. I hate it so much.

Excision is the first twelve player PvE activity in Destiny 2, and by god I hope Bungie never does this again.

For context, in a previous season there was a glitch that allowed for twelve people in a fireteam to join a raid instance. Fun times.

Now, flash forward to 2024 and Bungie made it a feature! Hooray! For the finale too? The final blow to the Witness? Oh man this is exciting- oh. Oh you just stand on a plate, kill some ads, dunk light, DPS until a final stand?

What a disappointment.

It opens with that 2.6 billion dollar movie’s rally the troops scene with all of your allies standing one by one ready for the final assault.

It cuts abruptly after Zavala lands a hit on the army of Scorn troops in front of him.

This cutscene sucks.

If you are going to show me the rally of the troops and copy that 2.6 billion dollar movie’s scene, then just let a massive fight play out. So much of the Blur cinematics Bungie does is just characters fighting all the goddamn time, and I am annoyed they decided, “you know what, maybe we won’t show a big battle. :)”

You get dropped into the arena without any fanfare and in the first arena, you just kill a bunch of ads and stand on plates.

The very next room is where the Witness is standing, with very minimal threat to you from it besides various enemy races. After you dunk some light motes, you then damage the Witness, using some of it’s AOE attacks from the raid to get you off the damaging platform, rinse and repeat until completion.

I was hoping for a much longer encounter. I was floored that there were only two arenas, and after the campaign, the post-campaign, and the raid, I was expecting some not super challenging, but mechanics to work through at the very least or insane set piece moments like piloting a Fallen Brig to clear the way for allies, or scale various buildings to open doors for other teams.

There is almost nothing here, and it is so embarrassing this is how they end it.
But nothing, nothing comes close to the final cutscene.

Your ghost, having expended its light, dies.

In an actual good moment, the Guardian’s player character is pleading with the Traveler, asking to bring back one ghost in the army it created.

It doesn’t answer.

Genuinely an amazing moment before Cayde-6 shows up.

Cayde then kills himself to revive the Ghost and everything is happy and cheery.

This sucked so much.

I wish they had let the Ghost remain dead for a little longer, maybe following it up with a quest where you go with Cayde and then he sacrifices himself, but the emotional beat this needed to hit made me frustrated beyond belief that a moment this good was ripped away as fast as it was.

The finale shows all the characters we’ve met and the journey we’ve been on, blah-blah, who cares.

The very last cutscene is the Guardian staring out into the opened Traveler as Bungie asks for money with new content. As Crow narrates the next content offering.

Holy fucking shit, I did not expect this to be such a painfully mediocre ending to a ten year saga.

While there is a lot I did enjoy, I still cannot fathom how people are calling this Bungie’s best and a perfect end to this saga.

I guess after Lightfall, anything else looks good in comparison.

Having played Destiny for an embarrassing amount of time, I am used to highs and lows. I still chase the highs of this franchise every day, and just as they seem within reach, I get pulled into the bottom of the Earth either by inept decisions from the business or the game.

After Lightfall, I was utterly destroyed with almost no desire to return, moreso after the layoffs at Bungie back in October.

Yet, here I am.

The Final Shape will forever sit in a weird spot for me. It isn’t amazing and I won’t talk about it forever. It isn’t the worst thing ever so I won’t talk about how much it frustrates me.
I’m just left with mediocrity.

There is a common saying within Destiny to explain pivotal, community defining moments:

“You had to be there.”

No doubt, in the way The Final Shape is discussed going forward that saying will be extremely prevalent. From the sporadic nature of preparing for the raid and that final mission, there is such an insane honeymoon phase with Destiny players right now.

Much like Endwalker, it is hard to end a live-service game’s story. At the very least, EW can be played from start to finish.

But it will never be the same energy nor can it.

That feeling of finality will be long gone as the community chews into another two to three years as a new story kicks up and maybe Destiny 3 will have started leaving the rotting corpse of Destiny 2 behind. Sure, yes, moments like the raid and the final mission will probably be remembered, but not the overall experience. I have no reason to believe that a new player would do everything in order to try and relive an experience that isn’t possible due to content not being in the game and everything in the game moving past this moment, like business as usual.

You really did “have to be here.”

And that really sucks.