Destiny 2 Lore - A narrative critique of the Season of the Plunder. Higher high. Lower lows. 

The biggest thing I’m disappointed with in this season is how it feels like they wasted nezarecs potential

for me drifter and eido's writers and voice acters carried this season together with the mystery around the relics

The awaking of Osiris just comes out of nowhere with no hints at all leading to this conclusion. It felt like we went from point A to point C in the final cutscene. Just nothing narratively in this season lead up to this conclusion which I thought was going to be next season’s conclusion.

What I was really hoping for was an assault by erimis on the helm in a final attempt to retrieve the relics of nezerac. Now that we had all the relics, erimis would take her final gamble and attack the helm. It would have been a good little mission that could have added to the pirate theme, while also adding suspense since the relics aren’t the only thing of powerful darkness in the helm at the time…

I just still can't quite wrap my head around BREWING TEA OUT OF NEZAREC'S CORPSE CHUNKS... And then FEEDING THE CORPSE-JUICE TEA TO OSIRIS?!?!? How the hell did THAT jump out of nowhere???

Very well said, Byf. Hopefully this critique won't get swept under the rug.

We could have had a filler mission to rescue or find a fellow eliksni that COULD HAVE BEEN NAMED RANDAL, have a minor shake up with a minor character with a funny reference, and this season was the perfect time to do something like that. I just realized this and have never been more upset.

Story was ok until low climax Eramis duel and the infamous tea. Tea part required everyone, characters and writers alike to ignore a good amount of higher cognitive abilities. Only way for tea scene to make sense was if Osiris was dying and needed an immediate remedy/cure and Nezarc's power (Darkness being consciousness) could save Osiris. Saint, Mitrax, and others would have to live with potential ramification of the Curse if it means Osiris will live. I mean the Curse wasn't even mentioned in cutscene and Mithrax who spent the season warning of the reliquaries cursed powers just casually channeled it into a source for another to consume. If Osiris doesn't come back as a reincarnation of Nezarc or corrupted, I am going to be o so disappointed.

“I don’t wanna assign blame…” “It’s the PVP Communities’ fault”

Still on awe of the ending of the season. It’s like they didn’t know how to end it so they just let Mithrax do whatever. I thought nezarec would be prevalent for the next couple seasons but I guess not

8:06 is when Byf stops repeating himself about PvP negativity seeping out into the rest of the community for anyone else that's heard it the first two times and is feeling like they're stuck in a timeloop.

The problem is Bungie does not have teams in place to take care of each part of the game just like any big gaming studio. The game is not just in a bad place in pvp, it's the whole game. bungie is so focused on the future that they are not focusing on the present gameplay experience. Thats not good

to me the absolute biggest opportunity was not even that we didnt get the ship as a social space for the season, its that we didnt have a ketchcrash where we had to DEFEND our ship from being attacked. Have the fallen/cabal be the ones launched from the cannons to OUR ship and attack us there. Then Spider tells us that there were some enemies not aimed at our deck and made into the lower levels of the ship and are trying to break it or something. Then you go into your ship, clear out some enemies and repair a part of the ship, do that 2-3 times, get to the like reactor or core of the ship where the final boss is trying to destroy it, kill them, hooray ketchcrash done. I feel like that was such a missed opportunity.

Martin. That edit was beautiful. 10/10

While this was a nice Palette cleanser from Haunted, this felt like a filler arc in comparison to haunted. Did we find out more about mithrax's past? Yeah, but it wasn't anything as moving (at least how I felt) then season of the haunted, and the stuff that came at the end... what? I think it could have 100% been handled better. What they did to Nezarec was.... bad and they could have integrated the lucent hive much better then just saying "they invaded these hideouts". Edit: something else I would have liked to see? A final/emergency mission. Hunting the High Celebrant, Proving grounds, override: the last city, Mara's Ritual. There was nothing really special about the final pirate lord's lair in the story, other then the cutscene of mithrax and eramis's duel, especially since we had fought the lucent hive before. I wished we had gotten some form of emergency mission/ketchcrash where spider's ketch is actually boarded, and we have to fight off the pirates

This is probably some of the only criticism from the destiny community I can genuinely agree with, the commentary is controlled & constructive points that detail what would of been better for the experience & not just saying "tHis Is wrOnG, bUnGIe fIx". Highly appreciate the work byf & team

Maybe instead of blaming pvp players we could acknowledge that pvp is a huge part of the playerbase and actually needs development resources and care? Also, maybe not blame pvp players giving feedback for a lackluster season.

I think the big problem is that the seasonal model has affected all aspects of the game, from PVE to PVP especially. Big problem is that I'm worried that Bungie will keep on doing this to their detriment because the seasonal model makes them the most money and that is what Bungie is entirely focused on. On the narrative of this season, I felt like it was entirely too short and ended in a poor manner. It felt like the season was half done and the seasonal model Bungie is running really hampers that. I.E. I expected to see Mithrax, Eido, or Eramis dying about halfway into the season, and getting revived by the Traveler and becomes the first Eliksni Guardian at the end of the season. The community event at the end of the season was garbage and changed very little in the Eliksni quarter. I think Bungie needs to stop putting only a little bit of story in the same formulaic fashion each week in a season. Gameplaywise, things also need to be a bit less grindy and Bungie needs to stop doing a seasonal game mode for each specific season. I rather just have more story missions for PVE than crappy seasonal PVE modes that only last a single season. If you are going to make a new activity, make sure it's part of the expansion itself and so it remains permanently and save all the work on seasonal PVE modes for actual story and PVP stuff.

The final cutscene, I think did the greatest disservice to Eido and Drifter (and Eramis) who has been with The Guardian the most this season. There was this great potential for Eido. We saw more of her character and it is like she was then grounded for the rest of the seasonal story. Little talk from her at the end. Interacting with Drifter more would have been nice. He begun to open up to us more (and to Eris). Then we got Eramis, I think you covered her well with saying that it should have been 3 or 4 pirate lords instead of the forgettable many we had. Osiris awakening needs its own separate cutscene, which would have been hype material for season 19.

I honestly could see Eramis possibly betraying the Witness. Not for the Traveler not for the city and humanity but for the Eliksni. This season almost feels like she’s coming to accept that the Witness is just as bad as the Traveler when it comes to its methods. Eramis blames the Traveler for Riis but she should in turn blame the Witness. The moment she realizes that I think we may see a redemption arc for her. She wouldn’t be an ally by any means but it would be a good way to bring her character to a close. (But that’s just my opinion) she certainly seems tired of her current path but she in her own eyes is past the point of no return but not redemption.

the one season that I feel nailed the weekly story thing where you go off and do an activity to progress the story was season of the lost, where through upgrading the compass, you actually unlocked more to do in the rotating Ley Lines. That, to me was peak, I would spend upwards of half an hour to see if there was anything else that could be done. Sucks that that season went on as long as it did especially since it had several filler weeks where information from previous weeks was simply repeated but it is what it is I suppose.

The writing has baffled me this season. I felt like I was watching a spoof, a joke. Makes me worried for the future. And personally skill based matchmaking in control was a horrible idea. I played crucible casually for fun. Now I can’t do that, and I play destiny much less now than I did. Crucible has been neglected for so long. People have every right to complain about it when it’s such a large part of the game.

You know it may not be story at it's finest but something they could do as a set up for each coordinate search or story filler kinda thing for any season could be like a survival in Warframe, where you are a distraction while someone out of view, say Petra or whoever, so they find out info for you giving you updates on there progress until they find something and you have a choice to leave or stay for more loot and better information, that's just my idea Incase you see this Byf, keep up the great work

I feel like this is super dismissive. The PVE is literally so stale that bungie is poking fun at the community by releasing weapons like “something new”. This a multi BILLION dollar studio with ONE active ip that is constantly looking for new ways to monetize us and giving us less and less legitimately developed content. It’s all reskins and painted over “seasonal activities”. It’s literally so stale it’s unreal when you take the goggles off. There are other mechanics besides “shoot” and “pick up” / “deposit” for activities but those are all the things bungie has figured out in almost a decade. It’s insanity.

The like to dislike ratio of the season finale cutscene is 2.1k likes to 2.2k dislikes on YT(you can still see it with certain browser tools). Clearly people feel how awkward and unearned this felt. We all know that Bungie’s narrative team is way better than this, so hopefully they don’t get lazy next season like they did here

it's a bold choice to leave the relationship with Eido and Mithrax at that awkward and uncomfortable "working silence" where they only really talk as necessary. There's probably going to be a narrative payoff later, and it makes sense that they didn't just make amends by the end of the season, but I wonder if that dynamic contributed to the overall feel of the season. I hope that when they return to their relationship they really lean into that space like they did with season of the haunted.

My main problem with these Seasonal Models and the way the story unfolds was way more apparent in Season of the Haunted, but this Season did drive it home for me. Like you said in Season of the Haunted review, it doesn't feel as though we're taking a part in these important events that are happening with these characters. We didn't have these moments with these characters where they had their revelations about their past, but rather we showed up a week later and all was well. I haven't felt like THE Guardian of the Tower or any other notable titles our Guardians have earned throughout the years with this Seasonal Story Model. If anything, I've just felt like the Errand Guardian of the Tower watching a story unfold around me that I haven't had much of a part in.

you're one of the few destiny content creators remaining that i genuinely watch and enjoy. you dont talk pessimistically about the game, you just mostly talk about the lore. (and the lore is a major reason of why i love this game) you actively avoid spoiling people by altering thumbnails or saying spoiler warnings, instead of putting spoiler content in the thumbnail with a clickbait title. you're usually quite hopeful for the future of destiny, and i can tell you want the best for it. other youtubers i just get tired of because they post clickbait content that utilize leaks like the community event leak to garner views. i can safely watch your channel knowing that i wont have to see new unshown by bungie content 5 months early. (exageration)

My issue is that we have what should be 9 seasons before Final Shape. That's a really limited window to complete stories/plot threads in the Solar System. There might be 4 more after Final Shape leading to whatever leads to us leaving the system but having Filler or what feels like filler be implemented just baffles me.

Season of the Plunder was only “ok” to me. Not as good as previous seasons. But, I will admit, though it did warm my heart to see the Elknsi finally integrated as equal citizens of the City, it still could’ve been executed better, and not rushed to where we completed it in two to three days. It just didn’t feel too impactful out of seeing all the improvements all at once having them all be completed already. Makes me wonder if Bungie would bother decorating the Elsknsi Quarter for the Dawning.

Pvp people don’t like complaining about the game but, if we don’t nothing will ever get changed. Plus pvp players have had some of these problems for years. Ex: new pvp maps, we waited years to get new maps and the first one we get sucks

I can't remember which season it was, but I remember a season whose story essentially finished in 6 weeks I think. I remember being a little disappointed it was only 6 weeks for gameplay reasons, but I was happy that the story only lasted as long as the story required (i.e., no filler weeks). I would encourage the narrative team to write the story, determine how many weeks that story actually requires, and then build accordingly. If the story requires 6 weeks... so be it. And the story beats don't have to happen every week. It would be okay to skip a story week during Iron Banner, a raid drop week, or holiday (Dawning, Festival of lost, etc). There are ways to write those breaks into the story (Misraks could have encouraged us to train in Iron Banner to prepare for our fight against a particular Pirate Captain, Zavala could have instructed us to pause our pirate campaign because he needed is to focus on the raid [with an increased focus on strikes, maybe double pennacle drops] leading up to raid weekend as preparation, Eido could have directed us to investigate the haunted last sectors because they had similar energy signatures to the relics... maybe making the headless ones not real but an hallucination from residual corruption from past activities of Nezarec).

I’m happy that Osiris is back and I’m glad Saint is no longer depressed but turning a hyped up character you know the community has been speculating on for years into Nezcafé just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. No pun intended.

The bit that annoyed me the most by far was religating the huge important story beats that sets the stage for Lightfall to a small cutscene at the end of a very dry season that already had a pretty lackluster end to its story. It felt super out if place against the story and incredibly off how suddenly Misraaks is able to not only perceive darkness in a magic way only he can but also manipulate it to such a strong degree. I understand this could have come from him being influenced by the relic of Nezarec for so long or something but it still feels like a distant stretch. The story of Osiris being woken could have been an entire seasons story in itself but instead it's just suddenly Dark Teabender Misraaks is here to save us all by somehow turning dark rotting body parts into a cure. I really hope they don't glaze over how insane it is that he was able to do this. And the justification the story gives for him being able to dedicate his time to this makes zero sense too. The cutscene claims because Spider was helping with the rebuild Misraaks could focus on his Teabending but he chimes in for every single upgrade so he's clearly involved in the process and being actively updated so clearly isn't focusing 100% on all the darkness tea only he can see. Its also clearly hinting at some kind of Strand related ability ("threads only he could perceive") which is like the third time now we've had hints that despite the marketing we probably aren't the first to discover Strand after all. It also feels super cheap to just drop the insanely huge information bomb of Osiris remembering all of Savathûns memories as if they were his own. That is quite easily the biggest and most important weapon we have gained in our arsenal to use against the Witness. All her memories. That means her secrets, her plans, her past are all ours now, and they just drop that into a small painted art cutscene at the end of a weak season? It just feels so rushed to me. They could have built up to that with Osiris perhaps struggling with his own identity, or maybe believing he is Savathûn or hallucinating or really any kind of conflict that comes from suddenly remembering the entire many thousands, possibly many millions of years long life of another being alongside your own memories but the way its presented is like he's just woken up from a coma caused by powers we simply cannot understand because a guy who has never done magic did magic only he can do and it turns out not only are there zero consequences, its actually made him stronger than ever. It's just such a rushed feeling mess that really makes me worry for the future pacing of the story. They really need to wrangle this in and fast if they want the threads between Lightfall and the Final Shape to keep people invested because no matter how good Lightfall is, the prospect of another Cabal story that's simply leading up to the actual finale isn't exactly enticing to stick around the in-between seasons for.

I have a strong feeling some of the disconnects in Plunder occurred later in development. Based on the voice lines in Expedition, I'm pretty sure that activity was originally intended as the source of Captain's Coins to improve the Eliksni quarter. The relatively small changes in the social space might have made more sense as a series of gradual changes over the course of the season as players donated more coins. Having the community event at the end of the season felt odd. The narrative thread didn't make a lot of sense since there was no big finale linked to it. The cutscene getting linked to the outcome of the community event also didn't make a lot of sense. The final cutscene suddenly compressed the resolution of the seasonal story into a couple of minutes, it would have had more impact had it been more present in the game. Granted the dialogue in the activities hinted at this direction, but that's not the same as actual plot development. Still don't feel that the inclusion of the relics really paid off. That was easily the most promising thread, but why Eramis wanted them and how Mithrax was able to understand and distill their power remain unexplained. Why did Mithrax decide to use the relics in this way? All made for a weak conclusion unfortunately.

Our guardian standing there like they don't exist while eramis Scooby Doo escaped out of the asteroid gave me Borderlands 3 PTSD

my biggest complaint is the lack of impact our actions have had on the destiny universe this year with seasonal content. last year we had BIG moving pieces: alliance with the cabal, alliance with an eliksni house and stopping one of savathun’s plans, assembling a team of techeuns traveling across dimensions and then exorcising a worm out of our next biggest threat. witch queen set such a huge stage and it feels like they have used nothing with that this year. saladin is with the cabal now and crow copes, the vanguard goes to therapy and we learn of a new disciple, eido knows her father’s past now and osiris is finally awake. where’s the impact? they’ve shown us calus is coming. we have the threat of another collapse and we have done NOTHING but talk to people this entire year. let us blow something up, do something with big political significance, have us do something incomprehensible yet cool, let’s discover a weapon that will help us fight calus and the witness. this year of destiny is year of the filler and I can only hope we actually do something narratively that doesn’t completely fizzle out next season

I think the PvP pessimism spreads because others realize how much their favorite aspects of the game have been neglected. With enough varied voices you get a feeling Bungie isn't even trying anymore on anything.

Only half way through, but you really hit some nails on the head here. Personally I feel the seasons in WQ have been a lot weaker than the ones in Beyond Light. Of course the possession of Osiris from the Season of the Hunt onwards, Savathûn's role in the eternal night over the Last City and our cordial chit-chat with her in the Season of the Lost can't be rivaled easily but I think Bungie needs to (and can) do better in setting up the next expansion. Apart from that: it's not only PvP, even if it's the most important right now. The whole core playlist needs more engaging content, maps, strikes. And we need more reason to visit the planets beside concrete missions.

My biggest gripe with the narrative, is Bungie's mishandling of teasers, trailers and spoilers. We know too much about Lightfall, and we knew too little about where the season was headed, so the ending was bad. Osiris waking up felt like it came from nowhere and his big reveal about Neptune fell flat because we already know, with a lot more details. The story might still be good, but the delivery was bad. And there's no hype for next season, because there is no building up to it except sweeper bots and a twitter comment. The cutscene shod have come earlier and the time after be used to link the stories of this season with the next. Currently, it feels like a crisis early, then a chore, then it finally ends for the game to immediately be back in crisis mode. No time for resolution, no buildup. So yeah, it's no longer engaging as far as I'm concerned.

I felt like this season was like a anime filler arc (say for a few story bits) a dramatic change from haunted spooky vibes in the last season to space pirates of the Caribbean also shoutout to anyone who remembers gambit and wants it to be relevant again 🥺

Can you imagine how much more meaningful this season would've been if you did end up having this ship as a hub, ended up upgrading it and pimping it out or whatever, and at the end of the season, right when it starts to become irrelevant and it fulfilled its purpose, you scrap the ship and use THAT scrap to improve the Eliksni quarter. The areas of the ship's hub would be recognizable in the Eliksni hub, and not only would this have been an opportunity for growth in Spider's character, where he could have decided his old ship was better used for everyone's benefit (or been a little pissed but ultimately liked the idea in the end, much like what happened with Crow redistributing his supplies), it could have worked well as a metaphor for the Eliksni growing out of the old ways; Dismantling a system and way of thinking that caused death and clung to the past (Like the Darkness) and repurposing its husk into something that will protect the people and help them proper in the future (like the Light). Even if the Eliksni hub didn't stick around, it still would've felt a lot more fulfilling than just donating a bunch of coins and seeing some very minor changes that we're told are meaningful by the characters, but look very underwhelming for the work we all did. I know Spider probably embezzled all those donations or whatever, but that doesn't make it very interesting. We've seen the vanguard put people in positions where they shouldn't be in order for them to grow, like Saint-14 in the Eliksni quarter or Crow with Saladin. It would've made sense that they decided Spider should stay so that he can learn to take care of others instead of doing everything for his own benefit. There really was a lot of potential wasted.

pouring one out for martin, the true homie, for editing this again.

Very well said Byf. Your words of optimism and praise for what Bungie HAS done right in recent months is refreshing.

I remember when witch queen came out, and the idea of hive guardians was still fresh in my mind, I thought "wow, what will mithrax think of this? Someone who's dedicated his entire house to the light and the traveler, seeing that same traveler willingly give that light to savathun?" And then season of the plunder rolls around and mithrax never talks about the lucent hive. Other than their appearance in the last pirate hideout, their only mention is when spider says that "lightbearer" isn't as prestigious a title as it used to be. I think it was a big missed opportunity to not show how mithrax' faith in the light was challenged and how he rationalized such a worldview-altering development

Great story, bad structure and pacing. Gay Pidgeon dad ending was wonderful but I legit can't tell if they're setting up Nezarec for shenanigans later or if they just wanted to tie a neat bow on the Reliquaries and be done with them.

While I do think Bungie has done good for this game with subclass changes and such, this "ouroboros" effect has plagued our player base and is becoming more and more detrimental to this game we are so passionate about. Not only that but a huge problem in why we don't get cool trailers or secret missions anymore is because of dataminers, they are a huge problem and are more destructive than helpful to the game. I love Destiny because of the concepts and stories that it presents to us, the rich lore is really one of the only things still keeping me so attached to this game. Basically the community has been in a cycle with Destiny 2 similar to an abusive relationship, Bungie gives us cool content, we enjoy it, going through a honeymoon phase and praising Bungie. Then while we play through the content and such we are picking out all sorts of bugs, issues, and other problems plaguing the game, causing discontent within the player base, with people going as far as to bashing Bungie employees. Microtransactions also play a HUGE part in why Bungie gives off the "we want your money" type of vibe with Eververse, when people speak with their wallets it sends a message of "keep putting these amazing cosmetics in so that way you can take my money" instead of just sprinkling these cosmetics as unlockables through playing the game. I think everyone can agree that at the end of the day we just love this game and want to see it do good.

First big thing: We conquered and stole HOW MANY Skiffs(Fallen ships) this season and we dont have a SINGLE social space on a single ship. Second: the seasonal events and "special" quest for the Eliksni Quarter exemplifies the dry, stale gameplay loop Bungie designed every activity off of. (play the same thing you've been playing when the event wasnt there to get material x. Use material x to gain access to the.... *ahem* "new" contemt and turn x into X. Use material X to create Mcguffin SuperX. Turn in SuperX for rewards you probably dont want anyway. - 35 Haunted lost sectors for a Savathun mask made of LITERALLY GARBAGE AND A BIN, anyone?) Last: Subclass verbs/exotic perks not working on most the things you think it should work on UNLESS you have mods, but those also go away. - Bungie SAYS they want you to have fun.... but you can ONLY have fun the way THEY want you to have fun. You play their way, or you're underadvantaged, bored, or just straight up not accommodated for. As a bonus, I'd like to point out the exotics that work and dont work with the Glaive weapon Melee attack. The first pass, Warlocks get 2 exotics that work with Glaive melee, titans get 1. (Karstien, Nectrogrips, ACD Feedback) The second pass, Warlocks get 1 and titans get 2 (Winters Guile, Synthoceps, worgod caress) Notice anything missing? Hunters get NO GLAIVE SUPPORTING EXOTICS. Over both passes, Hunter just gets nothing at all. Remember the artifact mods that allowed hunters to become invisible on every glaive kill? That was fun, wasn't it? Well, that's too bad because not only was that nerfed faster than the blue-orange makes a model gun after the US Armys new rifle, but it also hasn't come back by any regard, and further synergistic exotics on EVERY CLASS undoubtably suffered from this knee-jerk, scared-of-fun "balance patches" I've always made the joke that Bungie makes Destiny an abusive relationship, and lately the lack luster, dried up, stale old formula just really shows how little they try, how little they care they aren't trying, and how they make bold claims about how "we're getting better, we're trying so hard," but how much longer can the prospect of "Things will get better later" carry the game? Especially after such a large and lucrative deal with a multitrillion dollar company, and all they can manage is this..? Things NEED to change, not just a promise that next time itll be better.

While i generally enjoyed the piratical adventure, and getting to know Mithrax and eido for the first time (since i missed most content between the release of shadowkeep and now) My biggest problem with this season has to be the conclusion. we go through all of these quests, hunt down the relics of nezarec, and then... they're just dealt with in a cutscene. Used for another side-plot that wasn't even the focus of this one. While im glad that osiris is back, That wasn't even the focus of this season. Had they used saint's desire to bring Osiris back as a b-plot for this season of hunting down relics and focused more on it, i would have been fine with it. Here's a what if: Imagine when we had collected maybe two or three relics, Mithrax mentions to saint that the relics having this veiled ability to awaken from their slumber that was meant to reserve their power. A power originally meant to be used by Nezarec to awaken when the witness arrives to stand at their side for when they attack the traveler. A slumber interrupted when mithrax mother showed up and cut them up to use that stored power for themselves. Saint could have been given more focus, referencing stories from his and Osiris past together. Showing us how much he's been battling with the fact that, for the majority of the time he's been back, he hasn't really been with the real Osiris. If they had built up that last PowerPoint of a cutscene more, or made it a proper cutscene where we get to see saint and osiris together again, and maybe even ikora finally letting her guard down to show how happy she is that her master is back, then i would not have been so dissatisfied with the conclusion. I have ZERO problem with what was given to us in it. But i know they can do better than a PowerPoint for it. They clearly have plans for Eramis. Hell, the last lore tab we got for her at the end (which i'm really disappointed wasn't shown instead of being told to us in a lore tab. Hate that about destiny). When we see what Eramis actual conclusion is, then i will judge the story we got here. Until then, i will simply say that it was a lot of build-up for a conclusion we will clearly (Please Bungie i beg of you) get in the future.

I was very miffed about the story, and probably one of the weakest seasonal stories. Nezarec was wasted, even for a barely mentioned character his potential was enormous especially as a disciple. Drifter's roll in everything was forgotten, Mithrax and Eido's relationship was quite nice though and probably the best part of the story. Eramis continues to be a mid antagonist. The only thing that happened after this season is that Osiris woke up and the Eliksni living situation is marginally better.

Some things that killed this seasons hype for me were : Not the reuse of lost sectors as hideouts, but the reuse of the reused hideouts. As if a pirate lord is just gonna move into a recently plundered hideout by a Guardian whose looking for a relic. Not to mention the same kind of relic that the new pirate lord has. Some weeks can be finished in 20 minutes. You go to the helm like “let’s go get those pirates” , you do an expedition , go to the pirate lord and push them over , then have Mithrax go “we are one step closer , see ya next week”… The buildup of Nezerec last season and their use this season was pitiful. This is worse than when they reduced Charlemagne as a submind that never actually mattered. This is the third time this year where we have dealt with Disciples of the Witness (Rhulk and Calus) and we’ve reduced the “God of Pain” and key reason for the Collapse to a Nezspresso Osiris was shown in Lightfall advertisement so we thought “Oh great Osiris will return” but why this season? Osiris has been mentioned maybe twice max through expedition dialogue and that’s all. Why was Osiris waking up the “moment we had building for”? We waited 2 years for Eramis to return, only to see her twice and have her escape again. On top of that , we never actually learned what Eramis’s plan was for the relics (minus having to get them for the Witness), and now that she’s failed what does that even mean for her? This season felt that “Learning Mithrax’s bloodied past” was the main story beat , and everything else was just filler , and Mithrax being a mean old leader isn’t exactly that much of a punch since we’ve known him for about a year since his frontline introduction, and for only one season. I hope Bungie learns from this season and why people did not enjoy its narrative. Next season has some hopeful groundwork with Rasputin and Ana so I hope Rasputin can finally have a narrative win (given the story with Warmind and Worthy)

Thanks Byf, I appreciate you trying to include a dosage of positivity, while still pointing out the negatives :))

My personal opinion for this season is "Close, but not close enough". As Byf said there were too many missed opportunity that I wished it was in the game. I presume that the developpers are working hard for Lightfall and it's sad that we can sense the unbalance of resourses divided between the expansion and the season content. I don't know if this solves the problem but if the studio or the developpers need it, I'm willing to pay more for the season pass. Though there were many problems, for me I had a blast with my friend as a new light and a new fireteam member thus this season became one of my memorable season. Thank you Byf for always making the content and making the community to think and improve this one and only world that we all love to explore. 　By Guardian from Japan(Sorry if my English was weird).

Ok here’s my thing. I understand the negative sentiment. I truly do, and here’s my suggestion to fix it: DO SOMETHING ELSE. I understand that you don’t want to play it for one reason or another, but get a group of guys together, grab some drinks, and go run random shit. My twin brother and I grab our friend who plays and we run dungeons without refreshing ourselves on how they work while we’re drunk. We do stupid shit. We’ll wipe on purpose, we’ll sabotage each other using dungeon mechanics, and we just have a good time. Also, stop rushing through the story. Don’t blast through it the moment it comes out. I get it, it gets repetitive week to week, but if you save yourself something to do instead of blowing through it you can kinda use it to break up the monotony of running strikes and crucible. Again, I completely understand the negativity, but there’s also other games to play. Don’t bitch about it, go play some new games that drop, give yourself a bit of a break from D2 for a moment. I’ve been playing God of War Ragnarok (it’s awesome, better than advertised), Call of Duty, and Rainbow 6 Siege lately. Give yourself a moment or two away from D2.

Thank you for addressing the knock-on effects of the negative content vortex, Byf. It's been absolutely exhausting logging onto RU-vid to try and watch some Destiny content, only to skip video after video complaining about the same issues over and over.

18:51 I’ve never heard Byf talk so fast it was surreal and hilarious 🤣

Biggest flaw this season is that the story was yet ANOTHER “hey maybe we should tell X character the thing”. “Naaah we’ll wait for the villain to tell them and then have weeks of melodrama!”

Could not have said the first 8.5 minutes any better. Im sick of the negativity as well. Great video!

I like what you said in the beginning: I routinely get it in my head to play certain games, and then when I do I like to get myself immersed with youtubers and on socials, and my momentum has been dead stopped many times to being hit with massive waves of negativity about metas, pro scene drama, developer/community communication, dry spells, glitches, etc. Destiny is at critical mass right now in terms of that

The reason I actually take Byf's critiques seriously is that he actually suggests some feasible alternative to what happened or will happen, instead of just posting a series of videos about how much he hates it. This shows that there's actually some intelligent and logical thought behind it

Bungie should just drop PvP. It's more trouble than it's worth.

I understand why Byf and many others say "We're sick of the negativity", but if not for negative reactions to any video game, how is that game expected to be improved? Yes, constructive criticism and positive feedback would be ideal, but we can all agree that Destiny has not been in the best place for quite a while now. Anywhere from the seasonal model to the PVP, to the Core playlists, it needs to be gutted and fixed up. I understand we don't want negativity, but at this point I think it's completely justified. It's time for Bungie to step up.

And I feel you give way too much praise to how the characters acted this season. It all felt so 1 dimensional and "safe". Nothing of consequence happened at any point. Eramis flipped her stance and basically called a truce. Eido was somehow surprised that mithraax was a bad person in the past (like basically all fallen). Drifter was unnecessary. Spider was a coward. On and on and on. Nothing happened that will leave any impact. We all knew Osiris would wake up. The big result was something we knew HAD to happen.

Small thing, but Saint and Osiris getting their joyous moment of reunion together at the end made me happy. They've been through a lot over the years, they deserve a win

Well spoken Byf! Finally a critique that isn't full of hate, but in ideas of improving!

here's an idea: SCUR-V (or however it's spelled) is free to you and speaks in beeps and boops like R2 and one weekly quest involves you two working together on Spider's Ketch (Ketchcrash redone with the existing assets up until the boss room where we use the opening room from Ketchcrash)' where you're given dummy coordinates by Spider's 'reliable source' and you have to repel enemy boarders before the ship falls apart culminating in a Spider Tank (or Heavy Shank) getting dropped off ending with the SCUR-V going in the remnants to pull the crews transit logs with upgrades to it over the Season Pros: no VA for SCUR-V no new assets instance-based so you aren't tethered to speedrunners and guys with builds for melting bosses Cons: a lot of work putting it together to be used once and never again, and Bungie wants to get as much bang per buck

This season, I waited to log in and do the whole season this last week and I don’t regret a thing. Didn’t miss anything…

I'm honestly tired of dealing with family drama in this game😫 I'm ready to move to another game, more focused on epic-ness and adventures. I have one season pass left and that's it for me. Not even buying Lightfall until I'm 100% sure there will be no family\lovers drama.

I absolutely agree with you about the framework of each season getting stale. I didn't feel that way for ages, and I really loved Season of the Haunted/Plunder despite the backlash, but today, when the new season dropped, and I logged on and saw it was literally another 'Go to HELM, talk to quest giver, do activity, talk to someone else' season I actually just decided to take a break from the game for a bit and recharge my batteries. It worked really well for a while but I think they got way too stuck in that groove, gameplay wise, even if the narrative has still been great.

Imagine if the helm upgrades this season could’ve been ketch upgrades and let us customize our own ketch that could have an effect on ketch crash and I really wanted the season to end with a strike like season of the chosen did so we could’ve had ketch crash stay once lightfall drops

This season feels like they cut it in the middle, went silent for 5 weeks and then let Mitrax make coffee. At the beginning of the season I intended to skip this one like I skipt sots last year, but the pirate setting got me really excited. Weeks later I'm burned out and disappoint. I think I will leave the game alone until lightfall.

I've wanted weekly seasonal story missions for a long time and am so glad they're doing that now. But it does feel lackluster when most of the missions amount to just some dialogue or text, and the biggest cutscene we get isn't even an in-game cutscene. I know it takes work, but I'd love even small in-game cutscenes after some of the weekly story missions, not just maybe after the very last one. Anyway, all of your critique is spot on

I wish the toxicity of pvp didn’t affect the game entirely. No game is perfect.

Byf with the deep cut sound byte for Kaz Miller! I see you Diamond Dog!

The end of the season just felt somehow both, too late and too rushed --- the tea and its effects maybe over two weeks? Something the vocal PvE player base also needs to keep in mind is how much time they expect to be playing D2 vs the greater population... I might get an hour a day and a couple more at the weekend, and I'm sure that far more than many. Anyway - Very happy to agree there are many redeming parts of the season, the story is there and in the most part it's pretty damn fine :) Looking forward to the next chapter :D

I play Destiny for the story, but the story is tied to repetitive gameplay. If the gameplay is boring, everything cool is monetized, and none of my friends want to play… the story is the only thing I have. So when this epic, monstrous character gets turned into a tea, all the cracks in the game start to show. A live game like Destiny needs to change in order to not slowly die.

I keep comparing it to last season. Ghost ship: Completely new area with tonnes of enemies and mini bosses. Pirates: New area only for quests. Bare bones with no collectables. Ghost ship: Final boss Calus the disciple who's been directly taunting us throughout the season. Pirates: Oh cool a rematch with Eramis..... no just a cutscene. Hmm what if Mithrax or traveler forbid Eido gets possessed by Nazarek? OH OH or maybe he returns and while he's not at full power we fight him to drive him away from Earth?! Nope another cutscene. The story of this season felt like an episode of Jerry Springer with us just standing back and letting the Fallen family throw chairs at each other.

Something I've realized, and what fuels my anger more about the story of this season is what they did with Nezerac. You know? The disciple of the witness responsible for the *COLLAPSE* of humanity and ushering in the end of the golden age. This (imo) super cool villain could've and honestly should have been more this season. They could have had it to where; after collecting the last piece of Nezerac, Eramis attacks the helm in a last ditch effort to claim the pieces and succeeded. From there, we could've had a cutscene of Eramis communicating with The Witness, and them telling her how to go about resurrecting Nezerac. And then, boom, Nezerac is back, another powerful disciple and villain that could've been added to both the story and game play. But no, instead we just collect the pieces, talk to Eramis about not being bad anymore and she leaves us alone afterwards, and then the pieces of Nezerac gets turned into fucking tea that Osiris drinks or inhales to wake up. Seriously, what the actual fuck Bungie?

The samey structure critique was on the nose. I had such a hard time playing Season of the Haunted because of it. Fighting a big ship full of enemies and nightmares where every encounter was the same just wasn't fun anymore, and I didn't prioritize and finish it. I love spooky stuff like ghosts but I just couldn't do it anymore. I did finish this season, but every hideout felt very much the same as the one before it. The only reason I finished this season's missions and cutscenes was because Ketchcrash was actually fun, and I love pirates. That's it. Expedition wasn't that great, it didn't really feel like we were digging up anything of value. I definitely want to see more of Eido. She's my new favorite.

You know I'm glad Saint and Osiris got closure, but I absolutely despise how it was jammed into the story. Imo, it is legitimately "Somehow Palpatine returned" level shit writing.

the pvp crowd is not the only one complaining, the seazonal model(gameplay wise) and the core activities are part of pve

I’m returning to Destiny 2 early 2023 haven taken the last year off to focus on other projects. So catching up on the lore here and thought I’d watch this to see what to expect going back in

The weekly story should have the seasonal challenges baked in, like patrols, lost sectors, strikes etc. Then make the challenges collecting things like legendary shards, glimmer, red boarders etc.

thanks for putting it into better words than i could cause i heavily agree with the negativity dragging the experience down

I would like to see Bungie employee tweet BUNGIE right about now.

PvP players and ruining everything for everyone, name a more iconic duo

I started Destiny when I was 13 years old. I have been playing the franchise even until now 21 years old (nearly 22). PVP is my life. Bungie have neglected me! I had been burned out and took a month break. I feel you.

Honestly this is the first year I've taken destiny 2 super casually. But even then this season burned me out soo fast it like the teams wrote and thought of this season on the verge of blacking out from too much drinking. It hurts everytime they do this. Starting to feel more and more like an abusive relationship we bungie fans have with bungie now.

Content sunsetting killed any chance of getting new players interested in the narrative. There's no way that I can get someone into the lore who hasn't already been engaging with it through the years before sunsetting. Sucks, because it's such a great story, but without the previous content being there, new players have zero context

17:15 never thought about it like that , that makes much more sense .

That was fun to listen to. After one other one, time to watch you being crazy with the Headless ones again. The tone for that one is funny

Between the pvp community and the streamers stirring up all this negativity, it has has done exactly what you’ve said. I see people on twitter repeating the same verbatim points the streamers say… its like a poison spreading. I still enjoy the game deeply and don’t hold insane expectations for seasonal content. I wish everyone would just relax

It is a lot of work to voice act all the characters that need it. Which is why Bungie should do what literally every other MMO in existence does, and the vast majority of good RPG's do, and do text based dialogue. It would make our Guardian an actual character, free up massive amounts of resources, push lore from the lore books into the actual game, and generally take the storytelling to the next level.

Myself been mostly happy with past season, my two only regrets are forgetting to buy some Dusklight Shards after using them for Eliksni Quarter donation, and messing up getting Reveler title first go, due to getting distracted during this years Festival of the Lost and not having enough time to grind all the grindy Seal triumphs

Best critique out there by far!

Sorry Byf but the idea that pvpers complaining is the sole reason, or even the majority reason, for negativity is absolutely dishonest. The majority of recent criticism I've seen is for the seasonal content model, the lack of attention to harder content like raids getting an optional contest mode, better rewards for master etc

this was the year of the unearned so far as story goes. we knew crow was going to do something wrong the whole time but werent able to do anything to prevent it because bungie wanted the story bit so they forced it through with the idiot plot(the writing trope not just calling it dumb), the healing from trauma that has taken most their whole lives and too many their life itself over the course of a week at the longest and for some players less then an hour, this whole season with the telesto ad and the events being ether the exact same thing as last year or not even meeting the minimum stated in the quest itself and then ending with "lets make tea out of the body of a disciple who has a history of possessing people and then give it to the person in a coma because of the curses left by the last person to posses him" that had zero to do with everything that was going on nor should anyone have allowed it to happen. for non story the maiming of warlocks to make the "3.0" changes rather than making the three classes unique or at the very least keep their own promises and then getting congratulated for that. another 3 seasons of being the most powerful third wheel in the system who can see the suffering coming a mile out but doesnt have the budget to say anything in this game run by a multi billion dollar company who has seemingly left their flagship game with a skeleton crew

I know the Cabal have had two solid seasons between Risen and Haunted, but I was SOOOO excited when seeing Cabal and Fallen working together. That sort of faction unity makes sense for them at this point, and I think it would have been neat to have seen the faction of Cabal that A. think Caiatl is a traitor, and B. want NOTHING to do with Calus' madness. Maybe even a soft touch on rumors or whispers of Cabal squadrons disappearing or something to hint at Calus preparing for Lightfall to continue threading that. Narratively and in gameplay they just kinda felt....there with Eramis. That being said, having a handful of Pirate Lords instead of a gaggle of them would have been a great idea I think too. As someone who really liked the leadership of House Salvation, it could have been really interesting to see Eramis attempting to ally with Fallen Barons and Cabal defectors that she has no loyalty or love for.

Another great video Byf! honestly I really wish Bungie would sue people for datamining it genuinly ruins the narative and the special idea of going blind into seasons and dlcs is a big thing for a lot of players who enjoy the game

Who else feel like Byf needs to work at bungie, like seasonal story director. Vote For Byf WE NEED HIM THERE :)