Highlights

  • Destiny 2's The Final Shape expansion revitalized the game with an engaging story, new gameplay features, and improved world design. It also introduced players to the game's first episode.
  • The shift to an episodic model has brought more storytelling opportunities but also kept time-gated content and lingering gameplay issues.
  • While the episodic approach allows for in-depth character development and storytelling, the time-gating of weapons and missions may frustrate players.

Destiny 2 has been experiencing a massive resurgence since The Final Shape expansion launched, with players praising Bungie for the story that concluded the Light and Darkness saga as well as other major elements like gameplay features, the Prismatic subclass, world design, and more. The Final Shape addressed most of Destiny 2's biggest issues and improved on them so much that the game can feel brand-new and yet familiar. Although the expansion's highs are much more prominent than the lows, Destiny 2's new Episode 1 and everything it brings is stirring a controversy regarding the past seasonal model, Bungie's decisions, and time-gated content.

With Destiny 2's Episodes replacing Seasons, Bungie wanted to address a few issues of the old model as well as create new opportunities for more cinematic stories to be told. This is indeed the case with Episode 1, Echoes, and it's likely that the same will hold true for Revenant and Heresy. However, the changes to the seasonal model are not that many, or at least they don't address some longstanding concerns, and new problems arose with the launch of Echoes that future Episodes should address.

Destiny 2's new Episodes are divided into three acts, each running for a few weeks, with the Episodes being 4-month runs overall compared to Seasons' 3-month cycle.

destiny 2 raid and dungeon changes
Related
Destiny 2 Announces Dungeon and Raid Difficulty Changes

Bungie reveals upcoming tweaks and changes coming to the raid and dungeon experience and the increased difficulty from The Final Shape update.

Why Destiny 2's Episodes Are a Double-Edged Sword

Pros and Cons of Destiny 2's Episodic Model Explained

Destiny 2's The Final Shape campaign came with intense story missions, and then the Pale Heart of The Traveler served as a follow-up to that story by offering players tons of opportunities to improve their characters - be it through collecting all Prismatic Aspects, abilities, and Facets or be it via the Overthrow event and Cyst missions. This linear approach to growth made sense, and it's something that Episode 1 doesn't exactly follow through on. In fact, Echoes has the same quest-step model from Seasons, and changes to Nessus and the Vex are pretty much limited to the narrative aspect of the release.

The episodic model allows Bungie more time between Episodes to work on character development, story direction for the specific Episode and the overall narrative, and also introduce "seasonal villains", new themes, and even locations - such as Destiny 2's Dreadnaught ship coming back in Heresy. Bungie has also been listening to players in the rewards department, as gear is more widely available and easily farmable, including crafting patterns. Still, it's not all roses.

Destiny 2's Time-Gating Issue is Seasonal FOMO All Over Again

Why Destiny 2's Episodes Are Not Solving The Seasonal Model's Problems

While the three-act approach for Episodes makes sense from a storytelling point of view, it does mean there are big issues with the gameplay aspect of it in its current iteration. Several weapons, missions, story beats, and possibly even game modes are all time-gated based on the acts. One of the weapons from Echoes that players are most looking forward to is the rocket sidearm Aberrant Action, which is Solar and can roll with great perks like Heal Clip and Incandescent, but it's not going to be available until Act 2 of Destiny 2's Echoes Episode.

A problem with the seasonal model was FOMO, which Episodes are seemingly not tackling in the right way, as they offer content over three acts and then also via time-limited events like Destiny 2's Solstice .

There are more weapons that are currently time-gated, including several reprised guns from Season of Dawn, and then there may be an Exotic mission with a new gun tied to the overall story of Echoes. However, this content will become available over the span of the next few weeks, with Act 2 being listed for launch in over 20 days and Act 3 in over 60. This does allow Bungie to have players engaged with the game in the long run, but it can be a double-edged sword in terms of delivery because it requires keeping up with the game for a long time. Destiny 2's Echoes Artifact will also get new rows of perks, which will presumably change builds even more, but not all players are happy about this distribution of content over four months.