No Bonus (minor CoO spoilers) (Destiny)

by CruelLEGACEY , Toronto, Monday, December 11, 2017, 15:41 (2621 days ago) @ Cody Miller

No, I liked it too.

As always seems to be the case, I wish it was deeper. Honestly, this is a story I’d have loved to see explored in a full length campaign. But maybe that’s just because I like the Vex and their aesthetic, and also love the simulation and time travel stuff. I feel like Osiris was wasted a bit.

So, I walked away from the CoO campaign feeling like I don't really need to play another Destiny campaign ever again. And no, I don't mean that in the ragingly negative way that it sounds... because I found the campaign fun. I'm still piecing together my thoughts on why I feel this way. But to me, Bungie's storytelling has just become so surface level, so unsatisfying, that I almost want to see what would happen if they just got it out of the way. Stop treating it like something that matters, because it SO does not.

Overall, CoO felt a lot like a mini version of D2; mostly fun campaign that doesn't live up to the glory days of Bungie's past, with a bare-bones "end game" that feels lacking compared to the later days of D1. It feels stuck in an awkward middle ground to me.

Focus would help. Just like Des2ny, we were bouncing around from location to location needlessly. Why couldn't every mission have been on Mercury? Why didn't Ikora join us as an AI companion like the Arbiter / Marines? Those two changes would have helped so much.

Perhaps. The larger issues to me (in terms of story) is that everything is told, and none of it is shown. Ikora tells us she’s grown or changed, while displaying no evidence of either. Osiris is held up as the most notorious and powerful Guardian who ever lived, yet nothing he says or does seems controversial, and he waits until we’ve done all the heavy lifting before showing up to help.

None of this is a huge deal... the bigger deal to me is that Osiris is a character that has been hugely significant in Destiny’s lore. He’s been whispered about and hinted at for 3 years. And now that he finally steps into the spotlight, he is utterly squandered and wasted. One of the recurring comments about Destiny is that there is all this great backstory and lore... if only it were actually in the game! But to me, CoO shows that Bungie is (at the moment) incapable of putting any of that material into the game in a way that remotely lives up to its potential. And THAT realization prevents me from caring about any of it. None of it matters, and at this rate none of it will ever matter.

Again, I know this sounds very negative, and that doesn’t reflect my overall opinion of the expansion. Because it’s still Destiny, and playing Destiny with friends is a blast. It’s just sad that after 2 full games and 6 story-based expansions, I’m still waiting for Bungie to use this universe to tell a story worth caring about.