The hardest factor about Destiny 2 is getting any of your folks to play it. Fans of Bungie’s formidable and imaginative sci-fi shooter have lengthy hoped for a easy on-ramp that might make it simpler to get lapsed gamers and newcomers again into its universe. Destiny 2’s new “Starter Pack” would possibly sound like precisely that. Instead, it’s an expensive bundle of random objects that followers can’t cease dunking on.
Season of the Wish went stay right this moment with an thrilling trailer and new missions revolving round gathering dragon eggs to win over an outdated enemy. But gamers additionally quietly seen a brand new DLC add-on on PSN, Xbox, and Steam that went stay alongside the newest replace. (*2*), it prices $15, and it’s one of many extra ridiculous microtransactions I’ve seen. Contrary to what its identify would possibly recommend, the Starter Pack doesn’t embrace any expansions, missions, or story content material. It’s only a random assortment of stuff meant to “supercharge” gamers’ arsenals. Here’s what’s included:
- Traveler’s Chosen
- Ruinous Effigy
- Sleeper Simulant
- Exotic Ship
- Exotic Sparrow
- Exotic Ghost Shell
- 125,000 Glimmer
- 50 Enhancement Cores
- 5 Enhancement Prisms
- 1 Ascendant Shard
Those first three objects are all outdated Exotic weapons which have been within the sport since 2019 or earlier than. They are largely nice however solely synergize with particular builds and might all be acquired from the Tower kiosk with out an excessive amount of fuss. The ship, sparrow, and ghost shell are purely beauty and utterly depending on private style. In my opinion no less than, those within the Starter Pack are removed from a few of the sport’s higher designs.
The supplies, in the meantime, are fairly stingy. Glimmer is Destiny 2’s most important in-game forex, earned by doing something and all the things. Cores, prisms, and Ascendant Shards (what gamers lovingly name “golf balls”) are for focusing engrams, rerolling gear, and crafting new objects, none of which is especially useful for brand new gamers, nor very significant within the portions supplied. It’s not even sufficient to totally masterwork a brand new piece of armor. It’s a weird array of accouterments to purchase for greater than the price of a complete season of the sport.
“I’d say this is pay to win, but really it’s just a waste of money,” wrote one participant on the Destiny subreddit. “Pay to lose.” Another wrote, “This is pathetic. 3 mid exotics, a few crap cosmetics and some materials is not worth that much. A real starter pack would be guns and old DLCs.”
There are three broad obstacles to gamers getting again into Destiny 2. The first is that many of the story is not within the sport as a result of content material vaulting. The second is that Destiny 2’s “New Light” marketing campaign stays fairly barebones and gives no actual course with end-game actions. And the third is that regardless of ostensibly being free-to-play, all the expansions are paid and unlocking entry to all the things continues to be fairly costly. Shadowkeep, the underwhelming 2019 enlargement, continues to be usually $25. The Starter Pack simply provides to the noise, complicated gamers with deceptive descriptions like “Fly between destinations in your new Exotic ship.” Narrator voice: Exotic ships are simply customized loading display screen animations.
The Starter Pack additionally comes within the context of layoffs at Bungie amid the delay of 2024’s The Final Shape enlargement and reported income shortfalls. At a time when the studio is seemingly determined for cash, the $15 bundle simply underlines the gulf between gamers and whoever is main Destiny 2’s monetization technique. It’s one factor to exploit whales, however as Destiny 2 gamers are mentioning, the brand new Starter Pack appears squarely geared toward profiting from new gamers who received’t know any higher. In the phrases of considered one of them, “This is some mobile game shit.”
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