Bungie have introduced they’re ending an unpopular Future 2 apply: eradicating older expansions to maintain the sport at a maintainable dimension. Crucial because it may need been for Bungie, this ‘sunsetting’ eradicating content material individuals purchased has raised hackles. Now Bungie say they have been engaged on the sport’s technoguts, and will not do this anymore. Expansions will stick round perpetually, although seasonal content material will nonetheless depart on the finish of every growth cycle—and Bungie do not say something about bringing again all of the previous stuff.
Bungie began sunsetting in 2020 alongside the launch of the Past Gentle growth. On the time, they defined that “the sport is just too massive to effectively replace and preserve”, in order that they wanted to chop off older bits to maintain it manageable. So that they launched the idea of the Future Content material Vault, shuffling older components out and in, together with reintroducing some bits from the primary recreation.
The primary sunsetting was enormous, lopping off the bottom recreation’s complete massive story marketing campaign, the primary two growth campaigns, 4 complete places, 5 raids, a great deal of multiplayer maps and modes, a number of secret missions, and extra. Additionally they compelled obsolesence on many weapons, one other sunsetting course of they later deserted however did not reverse. This all left the sport feeling very empty, to not point out totally baffling and hostile to newcomers. Bungie have eliminated extra since then, together with the Forsaken growth the place Nathan Fillion will get obtained (effectively, technically Nolan North pretending to be Nathan Fillion), whereas re-adding just a few bits and items from the primary recreation. Transferring ahead, they are saying they will not take away any additional expansions.
Throughout an hours-long stream yesterday, present Future 2 common supervisor Justin Truman stated Bungie have “been engaged on the Future engine behind the scenes, getting ready our expertise and our recreation to final for a lot of, a few years to come back. As a result of Future 2 just isn’t going anyplace, and neither are your expansions.
“We would like this story, since we first communed with the Darkness on the Moon, to be absolutely playable begin to end. And we’re joyful to introduced right this moment that we’re not planning to sundown any extra expansions. We would like the Future universe to develop, and we’re gonna proceed to do the whole lot that we are able to behind the scenes to maintain that attainable inside our recreation engine.”
In order that’s Shadowkeep onwards sticking round. The story will not be “absolutely playable”, thoughts. In a stream recap weblog submit, Bungie state plainly, “Seasonal content material will proceed to remain all through the present growth yr after which transfer to the Future Content material Vault when a brand new Growth launches.” The seasonal tales have usually been extra attention-grabbing than expansions. They may not have the hugest plot developments, however they’ve the character moments which make individuals care. Ah effectively.
Ending sunsetting is nice however Future 2 nonetheless feels gutted. That is not my most important concern, thoughts. After a number of thousand hours, I finished taking part in Future 2 on the launch of The Witch Queen as a result of I am executed with grinding. Too most of the recreation’s greatest bits require a lot grinding. I nonetheless miss Future a bit! I miss quite a lot of it. However I am unable to return. Future 2 is an incredible FPS trapped inside a garbage MMO.
Wanting forward, Bungie additionally introduced that the following growth, Lightfall, will launch on the twenty eighth of February, 2023. The penultimate chapter of the “Gentle and Darkness saga” will see our absolute bezzie frenemy Emperor Calus return as a completely initiated Disciple of The Witness, bringing his Shadow Legion to the model new area of Neomuna, the capital megacity of Neptune. It appears to be like lifeless fancy!
Lightfall may also introduce a model new subclass, Strand. Bungie say, “Strand is the second Darkness-based subclass, and it is all about consciousness, fluidity, management over your environment, and manipulation of your enemies.” Apparently together with some kind of grappling hook? Agh, the one different factor that may make me return to Future!
Additionally coming in some unspecified time in the future within the subsequent yr: a Wanting For Group system, a participant commendation system, and the long-awaited addition of a mods and loadout supervisor to avoid wasting and swap builds.
ALSO, a brand new season has began, Season Of Plunder. It focuses on Eramis, the Darkness-powered eliksni we froze on the finish of Past Gentle. Effectively, she has thawed and resumed her pirating methods, so the Guardians are forming a crew of salty spacedogs to hunt her. Some good characters aboard right here: cool uncle Drifter, the loathsome Spider, redeemed eliksni captain Mithrax, and his cheery daughter, Eido. Ye olde Future 1 raid King’s Fall emerges from the Content material Vault this week too.
The brand new season additionally brings Arc 3.0, an overhaul of the Arc subclasses which rebuilds its talents with Features and Fragments like Darkness and the opposite overhauled parts. Bungie have stated it is about going quick and punching laborious, and that “one of many prime inspirations for Arc 3.0 was the 2009 motion film Crank 2: Excessive Voltage.” Dang it, that can be tempting.
ALSO ALSO, Future 2 is now on the Epic Video games Retailer along with Steam. In case you declare it by 6pm BST on August thirtieth (the bottom recreation is free-to-play), you get the Bungie thirtieth Anniversary Pack at no cost.
ALSO ALSO ALSO, to have fun the Epicness, Future 2 has added Fortnite-inspired outfits to Eververse. And Fortnite has added skins of Zavala, Ikora, and Elsie Bray, in addition to a Inventive map primarily based on the Crucible map Javelin-4. And Future 2 class costumes are coming to Fall Guys on September seventeenth too.
ALSO ALSO ALSO ALSO, the Shadowkeep, Past Gentle, and The Witch Queen expansions are free for everybody to play on all platforms.
Okay, submit over, bye.