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PC Gamer US Edition|July 2023

After the highs of The Witch Queen, DESTINY 2: LIGHTFALL doesn’t stick the landing

- Phil Savage

After a year of power creep letting us chew through enemies, Lightfall is here to bring some challenge back to Destiny 2. Abilities take longer to recharge, enemies hit harder and tank more damage, and it’s no longer possible to out-level certain activities. We’ve spent a year gorging on ice cream, and now Destiny 2’s newest expansion wants to remind us that, no, we also have to eat our broccoli. In this analogy, the broccoli is machine guns.

This was always going to be a hard sell. Destiny 2 feels different now – less approachable and quicker to punish a mistake. While many of its changes were necessary, I’m not surprised that players aren’t as hyped about what Lightfall brings.

It doesn’t help that there isn’t even a great campaign to distract from the disempowerment fantasy. After The Witch Queen showed Bungie at its best, in Lightfall what we get is a mess. The story is an infuriating speedrun through vague ideas, none given the time and space they need to develop. What is the Radial Mast? What will happen if Calus connects it to the Veil? What is the Veil? Throughout, Lightfall does a terrible job of setting the stakes of our missions, making them feel inconsequential. Outside of the first and last cutscene, everything here feels like a disposable sidequest.

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Special Report- Stacked Deck - Monster Train, a deckbuilding roguelike that firmly entrenched itself as the crown prince to the kingly Slay the Spire back in 2020, was the kind of smash success you might call Champagne Big.

Monster Train, a deckbuilding roguelike that firmly entrenched itself as the crown prince to the kingly Slay the Spire back in 2020, was the kind of smash success you might call Champagne Big. Four years later, its successor Inkbound’s launch from Early Access was looking more like Sandwich Big.I’m not just saying that because of the mountain of lamb and eggplants I ate while meeting with developer Shiny Shoe over lunch, to feel out what the aftermath of releasing a game looks like in 2024. I mean, have I thought about that sandwich every day since? Yes. But also, the indie team talked frankly about the struggle of luring Monster Train’s audience on board for its next game.