Before I start I’ll admit that I was initially sceptical about the very existence of Destiny 2: The Edge of Fate. I’ve been an unapologetic fan of Destiny’s lore since day one, buying into the storyline even when others were condemning it. The Taken King, Forsaken, and The Witch Queen gave me some of the best campaign storylines I’ve played through and Bungie’s writing team has always been great at layering themes, and delivering characters with pathos, where even obvious villains have motivations that make sense. The Final Shape was the culmination of this, and ended the Light & Dark Saga with such powerful finality that I stopped playing for most of a year as I was just “done”. The story was over, and it didn’t feel right to keep flogging that horse.
The timeline of Destiny 2 has always been a little bit off, though. Lore-tubers and fan communities have pieced most of it together over the years, but one thing Bungie has never given us is concrete dates. We know humanity finds the Traveller on Mars sometime in the 21st Century, and we know the Golden Age it brings lasts a few hundred years. But there are anachronisms everywhere that muddy the waters. Rows of burned-out 20th Century cars and planes in the Cosmodrome, for example, that never added up to me. But while Destiny 2 has always done a fair job of confirming the Dark Age and City Age as “very long”, we’re rarely given insights into anything that happened prior to the Collapse. In Destiny 2: The Edge of Fate, we get a glimpse into the deeper waters.
This new campaign marks the beginning of the Fate Saga, an entirely new storyline that acknowledges the Light & Dark conflict as something sacred and significant that is now over. As we head into the expansion, it soon becomes clear that the Witness is well and truly gone, Sol has moved on, but humanity still has skeletons in our closet. Most notably, Maya Sundaresh, and the Nine, paracausal beings of great power who have been pulling strings great and small for many seasons of Destiny 2.
We’re first introduced to Lodi, a normal dude from Earth who has been dragged forward through time by the Nine after their Emissary, Orin, “quits” and attempts to rid herself of the Nine’s influence. Lodi brings a deeply human quality to the universe, a true outsider who can marvel at how absurd some of it is, while also serving as an audience surrogate for the writers to explore the history and nature of the Nine. Up to now, our view of the Nine has been very one-sided, with our main source of information being Drifter, who is somewhat biased against them for his own reasons. Actually that’s putting it mildly: he hates them, and any information he gives us on them is always coloured by that.
For whatever reason the Nine seem to be in trouble now, and are aware of a threat even greater than the Witness out in the not-so-distant future. They need Lodi, and they need the Guardian, and thus a new campaign kicks off a brand new Saga of Destiny 2. Of the other usual characters nothing is seen, except for Ikora Rey who leads the story for the first time since The Witch Queen. There are no new interactions with Zavala, Crow, Eris Morn, Saladin, or any of the other main players; it’s Ikora’s show, with support from Lodi and Drifter.
While the campaign itself follows the usual Destiny 2 structure, there’s less filler content than usual. The missions are long and usually interspersed with short encounters to unlock the mission node. This is the first expansion campaign that has been compatible with the Fireteam Finder tool at launch, and so playing through it with others on Legendary is an easier affair, even though it’s a pretty tough campaign at times.
It’s built around portal puzzles, as your Guardian learns new abilities unique to Kepler, the new Patrol space and setting for the Edge of Fate storyline. After discovering yet another hidden sect of humanity (although the Aionians are actually visible), you soon get to harnessing their technology, which allows you to manipulate Dark Matter. It gives Edge of Fate an almost Metroidvania-lite element, as you can learn to turn into a little glowing ball of light called a Matterspark, or move objects with the Mattermorph ability. With these gifts and Relocator cannons that open portals to get around, Kepler becomes a giant puzzle to solve as each area hides secrets behind these conundrums.
Campaign bosses share similar mechanics, often requiring you to disable shields and other effects by solving mini puzzles within the fights. It’s one of Destiny 2’s most creative campaigns, even if it does overstay its welcome by about two missions’ worth. The usual Destiny 2 rewards are borne in the form of a new Exotic weapon, and new Exotic pieces for completing the entire campaign on Legendary difficulty.
The story is superb, giving us a real glimpse at the past lives of some of our favourite characters that we’ve never seen. There’s an almost Control-like theme, with Lodi’s former life on Earth revealed to be an office worker in an FBC-style facility dealing with anomalies – one of which put him in contact with the Nine. And the Nine themselves communicate with us in much the same manner as the Board in Remedy’s Control, which felt like a direct nod to me.
Outside the campaign there’s a new ritual activity in the Sieve, which feels like nothing special but it’s well-designed nonetheless, as well as a new Raid and new Dungeon to claw your way through. The activities screen is now the Portal, which splits activities into four categories, Solo, Fireteam, Pinnacle, and PvP, and clearly shows rewards you can earn for each. The more malleable difficulty settings, complete with modifiers both positive and negative also extend to the Patrol zones, allowing Guardians to better tailor their experience.
Meanwhile, Armor 3.0 has introduced armour sets with buffs for equipping 2 or 4 items of a set (leaving the fifth slot free for an Exotic, of course). Armor moods and upgrade systems have been greatly streamlined, too. It’s too early to say yet whether these changes are for the better, but for now I’m cautiously optimistic. It certainly feels easier to understand.
Destiny 2: The Edge of Fate still has an issue with onboarding new players, as I’ve been trying to help a friend understand many of the systems and even I struggle to fully explain some of the whats and whys. It’s also a shame that Bungie have had to go back on their word and Sunset more activities and locations – this only ever makes the game, and by extension the players, poorer. Maybe they really can’t accommodate all of it, but there are plenty of things they’ve added instead that no one asked for (can we say “firing range”?)
There’s also no new enemy type, no new subclass, and no new social space, so outside the actual campaign, Edge of Fate doesn’t feel particularly new or fresh. We have a few new weapon archetypes which I’m excited for, but neither the crossbow nor the new pulse rifle have the same impact as when swords or glaives were introduced.
That all said, Destiny 2: The Edge of Fate does a solid job of ushering in a new era, even if it feels like less of a step change than we wanted or, frankly, needed. Lodi is great, and I always love Ikora, a character so well-written she can go through multiple voice actors and still feel the same (unlike Zavala, sadly). Here she’s voiced by the Witch Queen’s Debra Wilson, which is a little jarring, but saved by the fact that she’s a phenomenal VA. As always, having Shohreh Aghdashloo back as Maya Sundaresh is also a treat. In fairness, though, Brian Villalobos is the star of the show as Lodi, whose fish-out-of-water earnestness gives the whole campaign a much-needed human centre.
Overall Destiny 2: The Edge of Fate is a solid, entertaining, and intriguing debut for the Fate Saga, answering many questions but leaving many more to be explored later. It’s a little disappointing that we had more content vaulted and I’d have liked to see some real changes to enemy types and the subclass system, but it’s a fun adventure that will, hopefully, pave the way for another ten years. I guess time really will tell on that front.