The RNG system is still here but has been streamlined to be more rewarding. Faction Leaders regularly dole out Legendary items after you turn in enough Faction currency to them, which can be found by participating in activities in the world, playing Crucible, breaking down old items and participating in Strikes. All-in-all, it’s not much of a chore to get to a high Power Level to take part in the late game activities. What has been negatively impacted in Destiny 2 is a player’s ability to customize their Guardian and earn certain rewards
On paper, The Infinite Forest sounds like a fascinating concept. Bringing in procedurally-generated dungeons would be an exciting way to invigorate the endgame like with Bloodborne’s Chalice dungeons. Sadly, even this concept is ruined thanks to asinine levels of repetition. All the Infinite Forest is is just a linear set of platforms populated with generic enemies players have been fighting for the past three years. The sad thing is, there’s not much of a challenge here. It’s possible just to skip the enemies and head towards the door. On occasion you do need to kill an enemy to unlock the door, you can accomplish it by just hanging near the last platform and shooting them from afar.
Whether they intended it or not, when Bungie stated during the livestream that community was what bound Destiny together, they made relationship clear. Destiny is about playing with friends new and old. It could be a one off, with the new Guided Games or something more concrete with friends who have banded together again to face the encroaching darkness. If community is so important to Destiny, it was only understandable that this path would be traversed eventually. Relationship, is something most of us take part in everyday whether we like it or not. Even the Guardians in the Tower couldn’t escape the inevitable crouchers that would surround you or the dance parties. Oh, the dance parties. People can’t help but be drawn to each other, even if it means joining others only in digital spaces.
Humanity isn’t the only thing occupying the wide-open galaxy; there are the other two races as well. The Exos are powered by the light and that seems to be a living source. Besides humanity fighting its war there are the Awoken and Exo, both related to humanity while not being human. Equally as important to the scope of it all. Without getting into the nitty-gritty of these two races, just know that Bungie does plan on telling their stories eventually. The other major tie in for these two races is all the other high sci-fantasy space stuff going on. Without getting into space dragons (because they exist), there are also things in this universe the Destiny community has yet to encounter, unless counting Xur. Which brings this to the Nine. The Nine have been a known part of Destiny since the game's release, but the only contact anyone has had with them is strictly through Xur, an agent of the Nine. With Destiny 2 taking us to Titan, players just might get closer than ever before to this elusive group of who knows what (hint space dragons). Doing some digging, it's known the Nine occupy either Europa, a moon of Jupiter, or Titan, one of the new locals in Destiny 2, a moon of Saturn.
Curse of Osiris does include two new strikes, but both are pulled directly from the campaign with no changes. Crucible doesn’t fare much better with only two new maps on Xbox One and PC, and three on PS4. Unfortunately, as of publication, Crucible is wholly broken thanks to the Prometheus Lens, a new trace rifle that is completely unbalanced. Bungie says they’re working on a fix, but a solution has yet to materialize nearly a week after launch.
However, probably the most disgusting offense this expansion imposes on players is that vanilla players are now locked out of key content they had access to just weeks ago. The Prestige Leviathan raid now requires a Power Level that can only be attained by purchasing the DLC. This is especially terrible for PC owners who have only had six weeks to enjoy this content. Considering ‘Dark Below’ did not lock vanilla Destiny players out of the ‘Vault of Glass’ hard mode, there’s no excuse for what’s going on here.
Without a doubt, the best new addition Curse of Osiris brings to Destiny 2 is the Raid Lair. Filled with challenging puzzles and boss fights, Raid Lairs provide the thrill that the rest of the expansion is sorely missing. While it would have been nice to get a new Raid or endgame activity like in previous expansions, the Raid Lairs are interesting enough to keep players hooked momentarily.
Shaders, ships and sparrows, which could all be obtained as rewards in the Destiny 1 era, are tied to Destiny 2’s microtransaction system. Sure, common and rare shaders can be found be exploring the different worlds, but the most desirable shaders are all locked behind microtransactions and are now single use. It’s cool that shaders can now be individually placed on each piece of armor or PvE weapon guide, but turning them into one-time consumables tied to microtransactions is terrible. Swapping shaders in and out in Destiny 1 was a fun piece of customization, but Destiny 2 strips that away.