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Great article. Long read.
Here are a few quotes from the article:
I thought Bungie, the famed creator of Halo, would forever remain frustratingly stuck between delivering what it's best at and what it hoped to achieve. The studio is unrivaled at designing exhilarating fantasy firearms to shoot at monstrous, primordial aliens, all against the backdrop of awe-inspiring, otherworldly vistas. But it's fallen short of mixing those high-octane mechanical elements with the narrative and social scope of a true massively multiplayer online game, in the vein of World of Warcraft and other titles that inspired it.
I also thought Destiny would remain beholden to its publisher Activision, resulting in all sorts of decision-making and business choices that run counter to delivering the best possible product. For instance, I believed all the progress I've sunk into the game on PS4, including more than 700 hundred hours of Destiny 2, would remain stuck there
Shadowkeep, the latest expansion for Destiny 2, has made me reconsider all of this. The game now features cross-save, meaning I've moved my account over to Steam on PC, after Bungie split with Activision and acquired the rights to the game earlier this year. The studio has also restructured its entire release model to accommodate a new free-to-play version, a seasonal battle pass to help fund future expansions, and an ambitious release model that promises new activities and interweaving storylines at a steady clip throughout the year, instead of in large batches that dry up quickly.
Shadowkeep itself is not the biggest or most ambitious expansion the series has ever seen — that continues to be last year's Forsaken. It's also not the most impressive from a narrative standpoint, as some of its new missions and activities feel a bit too steeped in the game's arcane backstory. But taking into account those long-term changes to how the game will be designed and distributed, as well as played across platforms, Shadowkeep is without a doubt the strongest representation of Bungie's ultimate vision for Destiny to date.
Yet evaluating the success or failure of Destiny and any of its expansions is less about critiquing the story or the individual moving parts, and more about how the game treats your time. And overall, Bungie has overhauled Destiny 2 in surprising ways that make it feel like it's stepping much closer to the true shooter-MMO hybrid it was always designed to be.
Bungie is asking its players for trust. If I were asked to make that same leap of faith last year, ahead of Forsaken and when the game seemed to be at its lowest point, I would have walked away. But I'm glad I stuck with Destiny 2, because it's done nothing but improve in the months since. After Shadowkeep, I feel confident the game will only continue to step closer to Bungie's grand vision it first conceived nearly a decade ago. And half a decade and thousands of hours later, I can easily see myself playing another five years of Destiny.
