[Concerned Dad Voice] "I'm not mad, I'm just dissapointed" (Destiny)

by CruelLEGACEY , Toronto, Wednesday, April 13, 2016, 15:42 (3151 days ago)

Let me start off by saying that I mean all of this is the most carefree, light hearted way possible. I know tone can be tough to communicate through text, and I feel like I sometimes come off as more heavy-handed than I mean to, so I want to stress the fact that I say this with a light tone and a love of Destiny in my heart :)

I played through the new "quest" this morning. After I finished, I had to put down the controller for and think for a few minutes. The question rattling around in my brain was "How did this happen?". Forget about the fact that this update is free (I'll get back to that later). Being such a huge fan of Destiny, I'm always happy about the idea of new stuff to do. This update brings some new "quality of life" changes that are very welcome, new toys to play with, and the return of PoE which I know some people are very excited about. For the moment, I'm not thinking about any of that.

I'm thinking about the "quest" that Bungie promoted in their marketing and tried to get us all excited about. On the latest Starside Lounge, Speedracer made the point that this is a great opportunity for Bungie to learn from past mistakes, and adopt an "under promise, over deliver" approach. He said something to the effect of they could give us 3-4 story missions and a strike and that would be fine, but they could surprise us with 7 or 8 story missions and we'd all be thrilled (I'm paraphrasing here).

Unfortunately, I think there is only 1 way to describe what Bungie has given us: The absolute bare minimum.

* April Update quest spoilers from here on out *

The new quest includes:

1) A story mission so short I don't even want to call it a story mission. It's hysterically short.
2) A "kill stuff to collect materials" objective on par with the weaker patrol missions.
3) A short strike (which I personally enjoyed, but it is quite short nonetheless).

That's it. That's the entire quest.

How does this happen in a Bungie game? I'm a HUGE Bungie fan. But the reason I'm a fan is because Bungie consistently makes some of the very best games ever made. Everything they put out is top-tier in terms of quality... or at least it used to be.
I just don't understand how anyone at Bungie could play this new content and say "Yes, this is worth spinning up the hype machine and getting people excited over". I know Destiny players all want more content, but not content for content's sake. That's all this is. It is poor content.

While I'm thinking all this, the other side of my brain is saying "lighten up, it's part of a free update that gave you something to do for 20 minutes. What's the big deal". But I can't shake the feeling that the game is absolutely no better for the inclusion of this quest... if anything, it is yet another sub-par, boring activity that will be quickly forgotten along with half of the year 1 story missions and sub quests. And in the long run, I think that actually makes it bad for the game.

I'm trying to imagine how returning Destiny players feel about this (I'd love to hear from anyone who came back to Destiny to play this new content). I imagine it must feel like a joke. "I jumped back into the game for this?!" Destiny is the sum of its parts... some of those parts are absolutely brilliant, but other parts are not so strong. The last thing this game needs is more sub-par content.

I know... I know... it's free. But you know what else is free right now? Sunset Overdrive. Zombi. DotA 2. About a billion iPhone games that are all better than this quest. Not to mention the fact that we are getting this update thanks to the money some of us have spent on microtransactions. This update is supposed to be the replacement for the paid DLC packs of year 1. I wasn't thrilled with those at the time, but content like this is pathetic by comparison.

I'm not just disappointed at Bungie. I'm disappointed for them. They could have said "you know what, we want to put all our efforts into Destiny 2. We'll keep tweaking Destiny 1 with the occasional balance tweak or maybe a vendor refresh from time to time, but that's it. So you can keep enjoying the game as it is, or you can come back in the fall". They could have done this and lost nothing. There would be complaints, sure... but in the end it would cost them nothing. Instead, they have hyped up the community only to deliver yet another disappointment. And if you think I'm being harsh on them, just wait until Giant Bomb or Gamespot or any other videogame media talks about this. They'll rip this update to shreds. Because in the competitive world of videogames, this content just does not deserve the time, attention, or mind share that Bungie has given it through all their promotion. They could have just released it quietly as a nice little surprise for Destiny players, and we would have said "hey neat, some new stuff and PoE is back!". But the Bungie hype-train seems to be required to blow everything up to 11. Think about the other trailers and announcements at last year's VGAs... did Sparrow Racing really deserve a spot along side the unveiling of Uncharted 4 or Far Cry Primal? It makes Bungie look completely delusional about the significance of their own announcements. Even the return of PoE feels completely overblown. All this hype, and then people play it and realize "yeah, it's PoE. If you liked it before, you'll like it now. If not, nothing much has changed".

Bungie, please... you're better than this. Destiny deserves better than this. An update of this scope deserved a breakdown in TWAB, perhaps a single little trailer. Not a month of multi-media hype and livestreams. And speaking for myself, I'd prefer you add nothing, rather than more filler content like this new "quest". The strike could stand on it's own without the rest of it and be totally fine. The infusion system should have been fixed months ago rather than waiting for a content update to pack it into. Same with crucible balance tweaks. There is good stuff in this update. I love the new armor. The Taken sword looks badass. The game doesn't need junk that gets in the way of the good stuff.

"Diamonds are not polished, they are cut", "concentrated coolness", and all that.