It’s an odd time for Future 2 for the time being. The sport is coming off of a stunning victory lap with The Last Form. The newest enlargement culminated the sport’s ten-year story and set our beloved solid of Guardians on new journeys, which will likely be explored in “episodes” fairly than the seasons that Future 2 gamers are used to. Besides, Bungie appears to have promised extra important modifications than have truly been delivered, and followers are rapidly taking discover.
Final yr, Bungie introduced that it will be shifting away from Future 2’s seasonal mannequin. Because it stood, each three months, Bungie would launch a brand new season of content material, together with new storylines, actions, and new gear. Narrative moments could be delivered piecemeal by way of weekly missions, radio chatter, and the sometimes rousing conclusion, however for essentially the most half, seasons boiled right down to the identical repetition of occasions with totally different dialogue. Generally there wouldn’t even be new story content material for weeks on finish, leaving gamers to marvel when the narrative would choose again up.
By comparability, Future 2’s first episode, Echoes, concluded its first of three acts this week, and followers aren’t precisely thrilled with what they received. The majority of Echoes content material proper now’s a repeatable few actions, some new gear themed after the Vex enemy faction (who appear to be the main target proper now), and the occasional cutscene or little bit of dialogue. Now that the act has concluded, there’s nothing to essentially do however wait until the following one unlocks in a matter of weeks, which means there’s principally a built-in down interval now resulting from timegating. Sound acquainted?
Suffice to say, seasons in Future 2 have been typically tiring, mind-numbing, and sometimes complicated to need to sustain with, and to make issues worse, each characteristic or mechanic launched inside them has been ripped out of the sport as soon as a brand new enlargement launched. This strategy has wanted a change for a very long time, and the brand new episodes ought to’ve been that. We’re off to a poor begin if that’s the case, although, as a result of issues appear essentially the identical as ever, if not a little bit worse.
Future gamers have spent the previous few weeks voicing these actual sentiments and hoping that the most effective remains to be to come back. One put up on the official Future subreddit referred to as the construction of the primary episode “a let down to this point,” suggesting that “Echoes to this point has simply been an prolonged seasonal mannequin with extra time gating.” One other referred to as episodes “worse dripfed content material than seasons.” The idea that some are working with is that since Echoes is wrapped up within the launch of a brand new enlargement, it’s additionally beginning gradual to not overwhelm gamers. If that simply so occurs to be the case, there’s now quite a lot of stress on the remainder of the episode to drum up some pleasure.
A part of the issue is that Bungie by no means explicitly detailed what the distinction right here was going to be. Whereas the studio touted episodes as a serious shift that’d change the way in which it delivered content material, it by no means broke down the mannequin outdoors of a tough roadmap. Gamers perceive that the three episodes following The Last Form are going to be extra standalone tales, fairly than the connective seasonal narratives followers are used to, however what they actually wished to know was what to anticipate and when to anticipate it.
As a substitute, Bungie waited ceaselessly to comply with up, and even after they did element the topics of the episodes, they nonetheless supplied little in the way in which of a breakdown as to what gamers ought to anticipate to be doing. By providing little in the way in which of communication—an issue Bungie retains working into after which amending for—expectations have been allowed to construct, and now many are dissatisfied to see that they’re seemingly getting even shorter bursts of content material of their favourite ongoing recreation. And now, fairly than having fun with their time with Future 2, there’s a complete group questioning what’s happening in its fast future.