Bungie’s newest Future 2 showcase was a giant blowout for its upcoming growth, The Ultimate Form. Although the studio’s been comparatively mum on the growth, which is able to shut out the ten-year story the studio’s been telling because the first Future launched in September of 2014, it lastly revealed a few of its hand, together with a brand new subclass, enemy faction, and an thrilling new class merchandise that threatens to uncork the potential of buildcrafting in Future 2.
Breaking the sport
First up, Bungie led the showcase with the introduction of the latest subclass, which it’s calling Prismatic. As an alternative of specializing in one component like earlier Gentle and Darkish subclasses have, Prismatic is finest considered Future 2’s reply to multiclassing. Gamers will now be capable of use features of each archetypes of subclasses concurrently and it seems fucking bonkers, dude. That is the sort of factor that gamers have dreamt of, however couldn’t probably be carried out as a result of it might throw everything of the sport into chaos (or so some thought). Nicely, Bungie goes ahead with it anyway, and it seems dynamic and chaotic as all hell.
In anecdotes offered by Bungie workers through the showcase, the builds sound completely busted. One member of the staff talked about slowing down enemies with a Stasis grenade, throwing a shuriken into the group to skinny out their numbers, after which throwing one other Photo voltaic grenade you can shoot to detonate to wash up. One other mixture consisted of unleashing Strand hatchlings, which operate like a pet that pursues enemies, whereas concurrently throwing out a Stasis turret to successfully grow to be a crowd management machine.
When utilizing the Prismatic subclass, gamers will see two gauges above their weapons and skills that characterize each the Gentle and Darkish. As you deal harm with Gentle or Darkish skills, the gauges will fill, permitting gamers to enter “transcendence” when each are maxed out. Transcendence successfully works like a second tremendous means that buffs the participant. Whereas transcendent, every class will acquire a brand new grenade sort that mixes two totally different subclasses, like a Stasis/Void hybrid grenade for Warlock or a Strand/Arc grenade for Titans.
Utilizing transcendence can even restore gamers’ grenade and melee skills, that are usually on cooldown, which means that gamers can successfully chain the utilization of each right into a transcendence after which deploy them once more to do huge harm. Talking of, transcendence additionally grants harm bonuses that stack on high of ones that gamers would possibly get from different class skills or present weapon perks.
The builders described Prismatic as an “superior subclass the place you’ve got extra construct crafting choices, extra potential mixtures, extra fragments than you usually get, extra fragment slots to socket than you’d usually get,” and it exhibits.
The Ultimate Form can even introduce a brand new unique class merchandise that steals the perks from different unique gear and combines them into one super-powerful merchandise. This consists of perks for unique gear that was beforehand class-specific, which means that Titans will be capable of steal skills that had been beforehand unique to Warlocks and vice-versa. The unique perks on the category merchandise can be randomized, however Bungie is hoping that the flexibility to mix them with stolen perks will incentivize gamers to pursue unique perks in addition to gear with the intention to make game-breaking mixtures of skills. One developer acknowledged, “We would like it to really feel slightly damaged.”
A horrifying new enemy
In final yr’s middling Lightfall growth, Bungie launched a nightmarish enemy sort known as Tormentors that functioned as mini-bosses all through the marketing campaign, and it’s constructing off of this concept by including an entire enemy faction impressed by them and the Witness, the large unhealthy on the heart of Future 2. This new enemy faction is known as the Dread and they’re abominations. I can’t wait to struggle them. Amongst their ranks are a winged “gunbat” known as the Grim, which may suppress participant skills with a screech, and acrobatic “melee bruisers” known as Husks. Killing Husks “the mistaken approach” will trigger one thing the staff is looking a Geist to come out of them and pursue gamers.
Two different enemy sorts, known as Attendants and Weavers, will be capable of use Stasis and Strand skills on the participant, respectively. The Weaver particularly will be capable of pull gamers from throughout the world, which is one in every of many firsts among the many new enemy faction. It’s been some time since Future 2 acquired a wholly new enemy sort, so it’s actually thrilling to see Bungie go all out on a faction that isn’t some sort of reskin of an present one.
All in all, a lot of what Bungie confirmed off at this time is the sort of batshit stuff I’ve needed from the sport for a very long time. Additionally it is the sort of content material you possibly can actually solely make whenever you’re nearing the end line and wish to throw the whole lot you possibly can on the wall. Future 2 usually appears like an awesome fantasy weighed down by the realities of getting to be a sport which must be balanced with the intention to be enjoyable for everybody. All the chaos on show at this time flies within the face of that want for steadiness, however it additionally seems prefer it’s going to make for an exhilarating closing chapter earlier than Future 2 strikes into one other section of its life. Paired with the discharge of Into the Gentle at this time, Future 2 is ultimately doing the factor it ought to’ve performed a very long time in the past: punching the goddamn throttle and refusing to look again.
