The biggest stain on Destiny 2 will forever and always be the removal of content. It is absolutely baffling everytime I think about it and is a hole Bungie could not patch up to avoid sinking that ship.
I don’t think the engine upgrade was worth removing years of story and content, in any way.
I’m playing through some missed Final Shape/Renegades stuff right now and having a blast, but I wish I could go back much much further.
I can’t personally experience the seasonal stories I missed, new players will never be able to play Destiny 2 in a format that won’t be absolutely confusing and off putting. The game fixed some parts of FOMO, but will never escape the true FOMO of actual paid story content.
I just wish they were able to bring it all back before the end…story, seasonal missions, lore books, all of it. The whole game available for you to work through.
Existing fans and new players curious about the world deserve to experience hours upon hours of hard work that does not exist anymore. Idk how I’d feel as a developer either through narrative, art, or gameplay that the stories you worked on are lost media in one of the biggest games ever. I imagine it’s soul crushing.
It’s the problem I place right at the top of the list for why Destiny 2 failed to grow, it could only hang on to existing players that were already struggling to stay and new players had no proper introduction or onboarding for the story.
Final Fantasy XIV…super popular, new players constantly, big surges in player numbers over the years. I can experience the story from day one with Realm Reborn, and go through everything. That game is free for the base game + 3 expansions now, and handles paid expansions very well where you buy the current one and get everything that came before so new players don’t have to buy so many past expansions, and then it comes with a sub fee.
Should Destiny done something similar? I think so. I would have waited extra time for full expansions to release instead of forcing themselves to release new ones every year.
I would have paid them a sub fee for when I was actively playing too. Destiny was an MMO without the systems that keep an MMO afloat, it would have allowed them resources and efficiency to respond to feedback much better than upcoming content already being locked in because it has to come out so soon.
I’ll stop the ramble here because it’s such a big subject, but I mourn my complete Destiny 2 experience. Quite literally the “You just had to be there” Game.