Posted by The new Destiny 2 “Episode: Revenant” has been out for about two weeks, and it’s ok. Unlike “Echoes,” Bungie released all of “Revenant” Act One immediately. Overall, I’m not too terribly impressed with the first Act and its content, but it does bring some nice new content and lays a solid foundation that the rest of “Revenant” can build and improve upon.
In terms of story, not a whole lot has happened, so here’s the spoiler warning for that. The first Act consists of hunting down Eramis and convincing her to join us to stop Fikrul the Fanatic from using an Echo to turn living Fallen in Scorn and become Kell of Kells. In the process, we work with Crow and Mithrax to confront Fikrul and try to talk things out. Talking doesn’t work, and Act One ends there. I’m a little underwhelmed that this is all we’re getting in terms of story for Act One. It feels very barebones and almost more like a prologue than the first substantial chapter. That being said, the actual gameplay feels more fulfilling and less padded out with filler objectives like “go to x lost sector,” “kill y number of z enemy,” and so on being absent. The gameplay content is straight to the point, and that’s a good thing. However I will say this: Act One provides a solid foundation that the following Acts can definitely build on and elevate, assuming it’s done well and the ball isn’t dropped like it was with “Echoes.”
Turning to the gameplay content, the “new” activity consists of revamped Onslaught with three new maps, enemy factions, and upgrades. Overall I like it. I don’t have much to say about it because Onslaught is a solid mode, so adding content to it is only a good thing. I hope that the Onslaught additions stay and are added to the Onslaught playlist once the “Revenant” content goes away.
The loot is another sore spot this season. First and foremost, the power cap got increased by 10, which is really annoying, especially after last year where the cap never got raised after Lightfall‘s release. The seasonal weapons are no longer craftable, but are instead randomly dropped from Onslaught and through Tonics–a new consumable buff system. I have a mixed opinion of Tonics. Craftable consumable buffs sounds really interesting on paper, but in practice they kind of fall flat. It also means that you have to actively grind out gear as opposed to passively accumulating it. The new gear itself also seems fairly solid, with some of the weapons, like the hand cannon, boasting some really interesting new rolls. Unfortunately, grinding out the weapons is going to be a bit of a pain because you can’t accumulate consistent red borders and then craft your perfect roll. Frankly it’s an annoying decision that I hope we don’t see repeated in “Episode: Heresy.” The most noteworthy loot consists of the new exotics. Alethonym is a stasis grenade launcher that uses primary ammo and its special exotic function is being able to generate special or heavy ammo by charging it with vestiges dropped by killed enemies or bosses damaged by it. Alethonym is another exotic that’s really good on paper but feels pretty boring to use in practice. It’s not bad, but it’s not particularly interesting either. That being said, having another option for ammo generation is a strong addition. Each class also received a new exotic armor piece related to stasis. I’ve not been able to use either the Hunter or Titan pieces, but from my understanding, the Hunter one is bugged and the Titan one is just bad. The Warlock one, however, is very solid. It provides some really nice buffs to Bleak Watcher, which in turn buffs both Stasis and Prismatic subclasses. The new Rime-Coat Raiment feels really good to use and has actually made me take Getaway Artist off of my Prismatic build. It provides some powerful Slow debuff utility while buffing an already popular Warlock aspect in an interesting way.
Finally, “Revenant” brings a new dungeon to Destiny 2: Vesper’s Host. Vesper’s Host is tough. I didn’t have an opportunity to try it on contest mode, but when I did give it a first run, my team made it to the final boss before needing to call it for the night. We beat it the following day, and then ran it again after the weekly reset, and the second run definitely made us appreciate it a lot more. Aesthetically, the dungeon is really cool, featuring a mix of Braytech, Fallen scavengers, and even knockoff SIVA. Mechanically, it borrows from Deep Stone Crypt but changes up Scanner and Suppressor. Now for Scanner, you have to watch your minimap to see which items need to be interacted with. I think it’s a decent change that stays true to the original buff. Suppressor’s rework is not good. If you have Suppressor, you use your grenade ability to spawn a digital clone/person/dummy/thing where you’re standing, and destroying the dummy activates the Suppressor effect in a radius around it. It feels really bad. The fact that you need to trigger a lengthy animation, sometimes near dangerous targets (like the first boss), only to then need to destroy the dummy to proc the buff’s effects feels overly circuitous and can screw you over. Mechanically, it’s not a good change. Oh and all the buffs kill you after a minute if you don’t deposit them in terminals. It’s a strange change that I can’t tell if I do or don’t like. As for the encounters themselves, the first one is solid and not too bad to figure out. It’s fairly straightforward, and that’s not a bad thing. The second encounter, and first boss, is really cool in concept and execution, but it does an awful job of giving you feedback. During my team’s first clear, we went in blind and spent a lot of time just trying to figure out what to do because we could kind of see what our end goal was and how to get there, but there was a puzzle piece missing and no good indication of how to find it. What I mean by that critique is this: in most dungeons, you can naturally figure out the flow and progression of the encounter through obvious environmental clues, game text, and so on; this first boss provides some clues and feedback, but it’s a lot more subtle and becomes very easy to overlook because of how hectic everything is. It’s still a very cool encounter once you know what to do. As for the final boss, there are some elements I really like: aesthetically it’s awesome (Fallen Exos look cool) and mechanically it’s relatively solid. There are some issues here and there, such as having enemies with AoE radiation fields that can kill you while you’re running away because they’re as fast as you, but overall it’s a fairly enjoyable fight. Except for the DPS phase. The DPS phase gave me flashbacks to Promised Consort Radahn in Shadow of the Erdtree because there’s so much visual clutter and chaos going on that can and will one shot you. An overly frenetic and chaotic damage phase, coupled with high boss health, makes for a frustrating fight at times. It’s a worse version of The Witness in Salvation’s Edge because while The Witness can deal high damage, his attacks are well telegraphed and don’t feel randoms so if you die you only have yourself to blame. That is not the case in Vesper’s Host because of factors like one-shot AoE lightning blending in with the skybox and randomly striking while you need to dance around and avoid getting overwhelmed by summoned enemies. As a result, I can say with confidence that this dungeon looks awful to solo. As for the loot, all four of the weapons look to have some really interesting and cool rolls that I can see myself chasing, such as getting Destabilizing Rounds on the new area denial grenade launcher or Chain Reaction on the fusion rifle. Icebreaker returns as the exotic, and I was actually lucky enough to get it on my second clear. On paper, I thought Icebreaker looked boring and rather weak. In gameplay, it’s incredibly strong. It’s not a weapon meant for boss damage, but for taking out high value targets and groups of enemies from afar, and it excels at that. If you pair it with a more mid-close range weapon, especially a special weapon, it’s an incredibly potent combo that synergizes beautifully. Overall, Vesper’s Host is a good dungeon, even if it has some issues here and there.
In conclusion, “Revenant” is a little lackluster. It has some strong additions here and there, but every step forward is hindered by another two steps back. I think that the Episode has potential, but we’ll just have to wait and see if Acts Two and Three can expand the story in interesting ways or if the ball will get dropped just like last time, and if the content and loot is anything special or if it’s more of the same.
Broad Scope Entertainment 