Destiny 2's Black Armory is open for business
Pump those bellows
A surly robot has opened her arms company's doors to Destiny 2 players with the launch of Black Armory, the first paid DLC of Destiny 2's second year. While the FPS's first year of DLC introduced new story campaigns, developers Bungie are now focusing more on activities. Ada-1 will send us out to collect weapon components and data (i.e. shoot things) then forge powerful new weapons in a new wave-based survival doodad which does have matchmaking (i.e. shoot things until we get a gun). It's real end-game stuff, mind, requiring gear so powerful that many people won't be able to complete it yet.
Turns out, a secret archive of ancient elite arms has been inside the Guardians' Tower this whole time, now revealed at the bottom of a winding path down through its guts. Inside, Ada-1 has been watching over the archive for yonks, and now has to deal with you stupid lousy Guardians sent her way by that scamp Spider. She can offer powerful new weapons but we'll have to head out and make them ourselves. This involves a little grinding through quests and then heading over to a Forge to actually make it.
Forging is a new wave-based survival activity, a bit like Escalation Protocol on Mars except this has matchmaking. It is not something to tackle solo. Or perhaps even at all, right now.
Black Armory brings a bump in the power level cap from 600 to 650 for folks who have the Forsaken expansion, and the recommended level for the first forging is 610. You'll have to grind a bit for this, especially if you weren't already near the cap. The new hard power cap also doesn't bring a bump in the soft power cap that can easily be reached without grinding, still stuck at 500. More (and more powerful) Prime Engrams are now dropping for players below 550 but yeah, there's grind.
That's no surprise, mind. Bungie's whole plan for the next nine months of content is focused on end-game, repeatable activities: waves and raids and Gambit mode and bounties and weekly quests and things. More Black Armory activities will arrive over the coming weeks and months, with a new raid dropping on Friday (recommended power level: 640 ha ha ha) and other new content both paid and free to follow. And new storybits will run through the background of all this.
Destiny 2 production director Justin Truman Bungie said in November that "what we want to do is deliver three full seasons of content that can last for an entire year, and that is coupled with the end-game and matches the way players play Destiny."
That's why this is all going through a DLC pass rather than piecemeal DLC. The pass costs £30 and gives access to three 'seasons' running through to the end of August 2019. Putting money up front for content that's largely unknown is iffy, but I suppose the proposition is paying £30 for another nine months of fresh life in an MMO-sorta game. Having fallen hard for Destiny 2 over the past month (shout out to the RPS community clan for being so rad), I tentatively bought the pass and do feel a bit silly not being able to even play it yet.
