It’s a wierd time for Future 2 for the time being. The sport is coming off of a stunning victory lap with The Last Form. The most recent enlargement culminated the sport’s ten-year story and set our beloved solid of Guardians on new journeys, which might be explored in “episodes” reasonably than the seasons that Future 2 gamers are used to. Besides, Bungie appears to have promised extra important adjustments than have truly been delivered, and followers are rapidly taking discover.
Final yr, Bungie introduced that it could be shifting away from Future 2’s seasonal mannequin. Because it stood, each three months, Bungie would launch a brand new season of content material, together with new storylines, actions, and new gear. Narrative moments can be delivered piecemeal by way of weekly missions, radio chatter, and the often rousing conclusion, however for probably the most half, seasons boiled right down to the identical repetition of occasions with totally different dialogue. Typically there wouldn’t even be new story content material for weeks on finish, leaving gamers to marvel when the narrative would choose again up.
By comparability, Future 2’s first episode, Echoes, concluded its first of three acts this week, and followers aren’t precisely thrilled with what they received. The majority of Echoes content material proper now’s a repeatable few actions, some new gear themed after the Vex enemy faction (who appear to be the main target proper now), and the occasional cutscene or little bit of dialogue. Now that the act has concluded, there’s nothing to actually do however wait until the following one unlocks in a matter of weeks, that means there’s mainly a built-in down interval now as a result of timegating. Sound acquainted?
Suffice to say, seasons in Future 2 have been typically tiring, mind-numbing, and sometimes complicated to must sustain with, and to make issues worse, each function or mechanic launched inside them has been ripped out of the sport as soon as a brand new enlargement launched. This strategy has wanted a change for a very long time, and the brand new episodes ought to’ve been that. We’re off to a poor begin if that’s the case, although, as a result of issues appear basically the identical as ever, if not just a little worse.
Future gamers have spent the previous few weeks voicing these actual sentiments and hoping that the perfect continues to be to come back. One submit on the official Future subreddit known as the construction of the primary episode “a let down up to now,” suggesting that “Echoes up to now has simply been an prolonged seasonal mannequin with extra time gating.” One other known as episodes “worse dripfed content material than seasons.” The idea that some are operating with is that since Echoes is wrapped up within the launch of a brand new enlargement, it’s additionally beginning gradual to not overwhelm gamers. If that simply so occurs to be the case, there’s now lots of strain on the remainder of the episode to drum up some pleasure.
A part of the issue is that Bungie by no means explicitly detailed what the distinction right here was going to be. Whereas the studio touted episodes as a serious shift that’d change the way in which it delivered content material, it by no means broke down the mannequin exterior of a tough roadmap. Gamers perceive that the three episodes following The Last Form are going to be extra standalone tales, reasonably than the connective seasonal narratives followers are used to, however what they actually wished to know was what to anticipate and when to count on it.
As a substitute, Bungie waited ceaselessly to comply with up, and even after they did element the themes of the episodes, they nonetheless supplied little in the way in which of a breakdown as to what gamers ought to count on to be doing. By providing little in the way in which of communication—an issue Bungie retains operating into after which amending for—expectations have been allowed to construct, and now many are disillusioned to see that they’re seemingly getting even shorter bursts of content material of their favourite ongoing recreation. And now, reasonably than having fun with their time with Future 2, there’s a entire group questioning what’s happening in its instant future.
