Destiny 2 gives all players access to three expansions as The Final Shape draws closer
Like tokens and orbs? You can get loads of them for free now
As Destiny 2's The Final Shape expansion hovers ever closer like someone gently nudged an absurdly large dodecahedron towards us in zero gravity, Bungie have gone and made three expansions free until June 3rd. For about a month, all players now have access to The Witch Queen, Beyond Light, and Shadowkeep along with the past four seasons of quests and things. Hey, that's pretty cool.
In order of release, you've got Shadowkeep, then Beyond Light, then Witch Queen. What's neat is you don't need to tackle them in any order. From my experience, you can wade through the menus, find your expansion of choice, track them, then press the "Launch" button to wizz you into each mission. I say this as if navigating the menus is easy. Reader, there should be a series of Race Across The World, except it's called Race Across Destiny 2's UI, where teams of two have to reach a certain tab within a time limit. I guarantee it will be more difficult than getting to Singapore from Slough without taking a train.
Having semi-recently completed all of these expansions, I can safely say Shadowkeep had some very lovely architecture and that was… largely all I remember. It's probably worth doing for the strong exotic weapons. Beyond Light's quest track was also a bit meh, but I'd recommend powering through it to unlock the Stasis subclass that lets you erect ice walls and shatter baddies. Seeing as Beyond Light's all about mixing up subclass powers, I would prioritise this first. Everyone thinks the Witch Queen was sublime, but former vidbud Liam and I finished it the other day and thought it was better than Beyond Light but not by a huge margin? Lots of alien worms, far too many annoying platforming puzzles.
The game's most recent expansion Lightfall hasn't been made free for PC players, which is a bit of a bummer (PlayStation Plus subscribers get it, though). Liam and I jumped back into Destiny 2 as lapsed players upon Lightfall's release, and found the expansion to be pretty rubbish, honestly. Still, it unlocks the Strand subclass that's rocketed into my favourites as this weird mix of Matrix-esque green code, slime, and yet more worms.
Free seasonal content is nice! They encompass mini-quest lines and repeatable activities that earn you powerful rewards. Liam and I are doing one that earns us special engrams in some arena where we yoink balls of light into a tower. We have no idea what's going on, but we are Pavlov's dogs and we are happy.
You may or may not remember Destiny 2 received three early expansions: The Curse Of Osiris, Warmind, and Forsaken. Well, these aren't available anymore because Bungie sunset them. I wouldn't worry about Curse or Warmind, those were middling to bad. Forsaken, though? That was some good stuff and it's a shame it's gone. Anyway! You can still purchase a bunch of their respective exotic weapons from a hole in the wall back at the Tower. Thankfully Bungie said they weren't going to sunset anymore expansions, though seasonal content will still enter the vault at the end of each expansion cycle.
Finally, all Destiny players have access to an event called Into The Light. It comes with a very good horde mode where you get the chance to earn some special versions of fan favourite weapons, as well as new PVP weapons, and a Pantheon raid boss gauntlet. It also grants you access to gear that'll rocket you to the max Power Level for free if you go and talk to Shaxx in the Hall Of Champions.
Here's Sony's blog post where Bungie's community manager recommends a few bits to crack on with.
All of this comes at a difficult time for Bungie, who reportedly face a full Sony takeover if The Final Shape doesn't go down well. I for one am very excited for The Final Shape and I hope it's well received.