Posted by To say that I was rather underwhelmed by Destiny 2′s previous DLCs is a bit of an understatement. I found Curse of Osiris to be incredibly lackluster and underwhelming, and though Warmind was better, it still wasn’t enough to bring me fully back to the game. Yes I played it more, but not nearly as much as I would have liked. Then Forsaken came out.
Forsaken has done what many of Destiny 2′s other DLCs hasn’t done–brought me back to the game and actually made me want to play it. The sheer amount of content present now in D2 genuinely surprises and excites me. I can really see that a lot of effort has been put into this DLC and it shows. And due to this new influx of content, I plan on only focusing on the story of Forsaken as well as the one of the new areas in this review. Next week I’ll right about the strikes, Gambit, infusion, and everything else that Forsaken has to offer.
WARNING SPOILERS FOLLOW
Concerning the story of Forsaken, it’s fantastic. The missions are fun and enjoyable. They’re well designed and do a good job of telling a story. Never once did I really ask myself if the mission was almost done because I was growing tired of it, something that I did a lot during Curse of Osiris. And, Forsaken has quite a few cutscenes, all of which are absolutely stunning.
The basic plot of the story is simple: there’s a prison break going on at the Prison of Elders, so you’re guardian goes with Cayde-6 to stop it. In the end, Cayde-6 is killed by Uldren Sov, the Queen of the Awoken’s brother, and his Scorn Barons as they’re escaping. You’re guardian swears revenge on Uldren and goes off to the Tangled Shore, a new location in the Reef, to meet Petra Venj, the Queen’s Wrath, and get revenge. When you reach the Tangled Shore, you meet the Spider, who is a Fallen that used to rule the Tangled Shore before Uldren and his Barons arrived. The Spider agrees to help you, and he leads you to six of the Scorn Barons. Meanwhile, Uldren is attempting to enter the Dreaming City so he can bring his sister back, sort of.
In order to find Uldren, you need to hunt down each of the Scorn Barons. The Scorn are a new enemy race of corrupted Fallen that are introduced in Forsaken and I feel that they are very well done, and there are a surprising number of Scorn enemy types. Screebs are spider-like enemies that rush you and explode like Cursed Thrall. Stalkers are corrupted Dregs and that’s really it. Ravagers are melee enemies that rush you with flaming censers. Wraiths are also melee enemies that rush you with flaming torches. Raiders are a lot like Vandals in the sense that some wield snipers and others wield scorn rifles, which fire void saw blades. Oh and they can turn into smoke and run around. Lurkers are similar to Stalkers, but they can hide behind little circular shields. Abominations are similar to Hive Ogres and they fire electricity at you and it hurts. A lot. Finally, Chieftains are the shielded leader-type enemies, and they can throw three different kinds of lamp things out onto the battlefield. The void ones shield everyone in its vicinity, much like a servitor, the solar ones burn you, and the arc ones tether you in place. It’s interesting and refreshing to see new enemies with new mechanics introduced into Destiny 2 and I really hope that they don’t become as annoying as the Taken did back in Destiny.
In order to hunt down and kill each Baron, you need to go on an adventure to hunt them down. Each adventure feels different enough to be enjoyable, and the boss fights typically have a few more mechanics than just “shoot the enemy until it’s dead”. You do have to kill the Barons in a certain order to power scaling, but I didn’t realize that until I tried to kill one who was ten power levels higher than me, which as you can guess didn’t go well. Yaviks, the Rider rides around on a modified Pike, so you have to fight her with your own stolen Pike. Araskes, the trickster utilizes traps throughout the fight, and it can lead to some very interesting moments. When I killed an enemy during her adventure, the enemy dropped an exotic engram. I got really excited when I picked it up, until it turned out to be a bomb. Between fake exotic engrams and fake heavy ammo, the Trickster fight can be very surprising; I often found myself asking if a heavy ammo brick was real or not, and nine times out ten it wasn’t. Kaniks, the Mad Bomber utilizes explosives, so you have to dismantle splinter mines a few times, which tends to bring back flashbacks of numerous Prison of Elders failures. Reksis Vahn, the Hangman runs around and tries to hit you with his flaming censer, making for a tense and terrifying fight, particularly when you’re underleveled. Hiraks, the Mindbender tends to send Hive out to fight you, and you even fight him in his Throne World. Lore-wise, I think that he was my favorite, purely because of the Throne World fight. Finally, Pirrha, the Rifleman, is a sniper that uses decoys to overwhelm and confuse you.
Once all of these Barons are dead, you go after the Machinist, then track down Uldren and the Fanatic, the leader of the Scorn Barons. The fight with Elykris, the Machinist really brought me back to Rise of Iron and reminded me of the Fallen corrupted by SIVA. It was an enjoyable fight, even if it wasn’t the most difficult. Fikrul, the Fanatic, definitely stuck with me the most. During the fight, the Fanatic calls your guardian out for having killed all of his friends in cold blood. This really made me think about everything that my guardian had done throughout the past four years and all of the different enemies that I’ve killed, and it kind of made me pity the Fanatic, even if it was brief.
After killing the Fanatic, you travel through the Awoken watchtower until you reach Uldren. Along the way, you have to fight a handful of Taken bosses, all the while you can hear Uldren struggling against what his sister is commanding him to do. When you reach Uldren, instead of fighting him, you have to fight a rather disturbing Eldritch horror-like ball of flesh and tentacles named the Voice of Riven. It is revealed that Riven had been corrupting Uldren by pretending to be his sister, and she was trying to enter the material world through him. Riven was apparently the Queen’s pet Ahamkara before being taken by Oryx, and she now serves Savathûn. Riven will most likely be the upcoming raid’s final boss and I am incredibly excited.
Following the completion of the story, you gain access to the Dreaming City, yet another place to explore, and the story continues into the endgame. However, I haven’t explored much of the Dreaming City yet, because I’m just not powerful enough. By next week I should be a bit stronger, and hopefully I’ll have all the new Warlock skill trees unlocked as well. Until then, I can explore some of the secrets of the Dreaming City, but I have yet to experience everything.
SPOILERS END
Unfortunately, I can’t talk much about the Dreaming City, because I haven’t explored it a whole lot, but I can talk about the Tangled Shore. The Tangled Shore is interesting, because it seems like such a barren area. Sure there are structures and caves and lots of enemies, but it feels so different from all of the other locations that it stands out, and I really like that. There are two new public events as well. In the first kind of public events, you need to kill a wanted enemy that has escaped from the Prison of Elders, or you can freeze and capture them if you make the event heroic. The other event is a corrupted ether harvest, where you need to kill three Scorn Chieftains, then an Abomination. Or, you can kill a resurrected Baron if you make the event heroic. The Spider serves as the vendor on the Tangled Shore and he gives you assassination bounties where you go out to different destinations to hunt and kill a specific enemy.
Overall, Forsaken has given me an incredible first impression. I firmly believe that this is the best DLC since The Taken King and I cannot wait to play more of it and write more about it.
Broad Scope Entertainment 