destiny 2: lightfall
I have a lot of feelings about destiny and really and truly cannot seem to find the words.
I'm grateful for the time that I've spent with it, and the friends I've made along the way playing it, but I have this profound sense of it not as a game, or as a story, but as a product: something that is designed to provoke engagement and extended interaction.
the dissatisfaction I feel at the conclusion of the campaign is almost aside the point. what matters is the points of attachment and wonder that it's generated that it can pay off LATER, after I've played another 100 hours of it, and spent however much silver along the way. what is the Veil? why is it on Neptune? what's up with the people here? where did the Witness go? why is the Traveler "gone" when it's still obviously here? what else can Strand do? what's up with the exotic this season? what's the raid going to be like?
and yet - on completing the campaign, on seeing that this is the story that they had to offer me, I was instantly struck with this feeling of - "was this worth it?"
at least at the moment, it was not. the campaign has some really fun missions punctuated by segments where you're forced to engage with the new elemental spec - which is fun and interesting, but hard to quickly weave into a pattern of survivability if that's what you need in the moment - and a couple real slogs at the back half where there's simply so many enemies on screen that it's a wonder that the game doesn't slow down.
but your chaperones for this adventure are deeply uninteresting and unentertaining, and the game treats them as if they are both of these things. their japes and sacrifices get positioned front and center. your mentor character goes from interestingly-traumatized to won-over by "go with the flow, man!" in the literal blink of an eye. the rest of the cast, faced with the greatest threat to their existence, literally stands on the sidelines.
in service of what? your hero spends hours chasing McGuffin after McGuffin, none of which are explained or even DEFINED, just told that they're Very Important and that You Must Get There First, Quickly! and even if you win, you can't REALLY win, because the story must keep going, I guess.
the past year was the best destiny 2's ever been. witch queen was a triumph of an expansion. I've played so much destiny. I wish the last bit of it that I'd played had been good, and not something that left such a sour taste in my mouth that I uninstalled the game. maybe (probably) I'll reinstall it. maybe it'll be good again. it will, I guarantee, keep going.