Okay so wanted to mention a few things. -I'm trying to upload a video every single month, I know this stretches it but a lot has been going on. -I know this doesn't fit perfectly with the story Destiny is currently following, just a fun interpretation for how things are going. (We'll see next week) -lmk if yall enjoy this style more, I went easy with it but I'll do more with it as I work on the next video -When I say "Shadowkeep is horrible" or that curse of Osiris is better than shadowkeep, I'm speaking strictly about the campaign. I thought that only mentioning the campaign and nothing else would've made that clear -As always thank you all for sticking around, it means a lot to me!
Honestly that pyramid reveal was amazing back then because it wasn't teased in the previews, but if you play now it won't have any impact because pyramids are literally everywhere. Back then it was 'Holy shit they're actually here'. and then it went nowhere for ages. was the only memorable part of Shadowkeep.
oh yeah true dude, that was crazy lol, sometimes I think to myself, what if people from like 7 years ago saw what I'm playing right now, they'd literally be SO confused and SO hyped at the same time lmao (pyramids, but also many things like prismatic)
In theory, it's a great start to D2 Y3: It begins with us finding ONE Pyramid, and it ends with Arrivals, when ALL the Pyramids roll up on various other planets. The problem is it ended with a vague sense of "Oh boy, spookyyyyyy" instead of anything meaningful. We got a creepy conversation with a mimic of our Guardian wearing the absolutely TERRIBLE-looking Dreambane armor, and then nothing. My suggestion would have been to have the plot of Shadowkeep be how the Hive are attempting to use a ritual to wake up the Pyramid early. Give us a singular, tangible villain to combat in the campaign like Hashladun, and just have Zolmak be the Strike boss instead and introduce an unnamed Hive Ogre boss for the Dungeon or something. Have the campaign be about us trying to break Hashladun's control over the Nightmares because she is trying to wake up the Pyramid to use its power to project the Nightmares all the way down to Earth, as well as using the Nightmares to enforce a cycle of tithing within the Hidden Swarm, strengthening them. That gives us a tangible threat to need to overcome sooner rather than later. Plus, Hashladun makes an excellent foil to Eris, as she seeks vengeance for the deaths of the Hive royal family the same way Eris sought vengeance for her fireteam. Have Hashladun constantly contact and taunt us by summoning Nightmares right on top of us while we're doing our missions to try to weaken Hashladun's control over the Nightmares. Make it a regular thing for us to kill a Nightmare, only for it to just get summoned right back. This makes the Nightmares feel relentless. Hashladun can even comment something like "Now you know how it feels to kill something that simply stands back up again, no matter how much stronger you are than them". Final fight is us fighting Hashladun in the Pyramid after she followed us in and she starts summoning Ghaul, Crota and Fikrul to fight us in between phases of fighting her as well, and it ends with the Pyramid's own power killing her for trying to prevent us from communing. This further sets up Season of Arrivals and foreshadows Savathun's own attempts to stop us from communing with the Pyramids.
There are literally 3 actual story missions in this expansion. The rest are complete and utter filler. I will give you an explanation for the scarlet keep though. It was constructed well after D1 which is why its not there in D1. It was created by savathun to lure us to the moon to kill the remaining hive of Oryx's lineage. If you wanted that to be explained in the main story then you would be sorely mistaken.
I believe people mentioned it in other comments but basically Savathun manipulated the daughters of crota to make the scarlet keep to lure the guardians and the daughters and other hive wizards were trying to make their own champion but use hive sorcery to change bodies/ souls honestly would have been way better than what we actually did in the campaign instead of reading it through the lore . - Also agree with you about the hive could have made it to where the red parts of their body were some kind of armor to combat the guardians and the spikes do extra damage or apply a damage over time effect. Would have preferred that we can explore the scarlet keep more and discover hive secrets come on bungie you really made a hive castle with nothing to show for it besides a strike and underground dungeon
But didn't we get the control of the moon in D1, at least the surface? We set up bases and checkpoints there. It's literally the closest body TO EARTH. The Vanguard is monitoring it constantly. How tf did they build an entire castle over there... Definitely bad writing
It was bad but it is humorous with how bad he makes it sound. Honestly it’s just on par with basic destiny story’s. Not great. Not completely unbearable.
Some corrections on the story 1. Rasputin never tried to stop The Traveler from leaving. The Traveler, during the collapse, chose to stay with humanity, and during Season of the Seraph, The Traveler rose up into space to get out of the way The Last City so it wouldn't be collateral 2. The Hive were always meant to get The Light. Savathun played a gamble where she completely offered her life to The Traveler, risking it all by sending away The Veil during the collapse so the Witness couldn't use it then, thereby saving The Traveler and the existence. This act of Bravery, Devotion, and Self Sacrifice still ultimately led to her Death. And so she and the Hive were given the Light by the Traveler. 3. Yes Stasis was used to lure us to the Dark. However, there's a difference here with us. Elise Bray, or the Exo Stranger from D1, is stuck in a time loop, and in her time loop the Traveler leaves during Season of the Seraph (whereas in game it stayed), this was the inflection point for the "second collapse". In all of her time loops someone else got Stasis first, and everyone became corrupted and turned against each other. No Human/Cabal/ Eliskni alliance. Every time it usually ends the same with the a final battle over the Traveler ending with a burst of Light and her restarting from when Cayde-6 first becomes Hunter Vanguard and only bits and pieces of memory from the last loop. But in our timeline she ends up finding that fish that follows her around (called a Pouka), and through some Darkness stuff related to the Veil, it is able to pull memories out from her mind, allowing her to get an advantage and acquire Stasis first, and teaching us how to master it without being corrupted (as she had did before but not first like this time) 4. The Traveler was not working with Savathun here, even at this point the Traveler is doing it's thing which is absolutely nothing. It wasn't disappointed in the Last City for fighting it. By this point there had been the creation of the Last City Alliance (Human/Cabal/Eliksni/Awoken), Savathun was going to ruin that all-by herself. The Traveler is not so selfish as to go with Savathun's plan just to save itself and abandon Humanity. 5. The Witness won in Lightfall simply because we got outplayed. The Witness was far too powerful for us to even have thought about trying to oppose it at this point. Between Calus and our Ghost, so long as the Witness could make that link to the Veil it would win. The Witness tricked Calus as well, telling him to go and destroy the Veil. This was a trick to get the Guardian, and our Ghost, as close as possible to the Veil, and in doing so once we defeated Calus and had our guard down, The Witness would take control of our Ghost and make the link. Winning. We got outplayed in Lightfall.
@@Scallywag_Gilbert68 To an extent yeah, but really the Witness didn't have to do much considering the races of Sol were more than willing to fight each other without the Witness being overly involved
I believe that there was a lore page which includes a brother knight and sister wizard. Now I may be misremembering this a bit, but the hive on the moon were experimenting with singing and forced the sister to sing until her voice was lost, and then sing even further until her soul was untethered from her body. The sisters soul was then placed into the brothers body but she quickly died. On the other side of the coin however, the brother survived the process of his soul being placed into his sisters body. He was furious for the wizards killing his sister, but knew not how to cast spells. And so he instead picked up two blades and began a slaughter against the wizards who did this to him in a blood frenzy for vengeance. This would have been the perfect chance to just make one or two new enemies. It explains that the hive have been experimenting and trying to create new forces to fight back and recover. AND right in this text it shows a product of such. They could have made a new wizard type named a Bladesinger who wields two blades and uses the knights style of ai but with the speed of a wizard so it closes the distance much quicker. Plus, it uses two blades so it hits twice as hard but at the cost of defense and hp.
What you say at around 2:00 minutes about “where did this red castle come from” is explained in the dialogue. The earlier line about seismic disturbances being detected isn’t just a fancy way of saying stuff it happening. It is specifically telling you that the surface of the moon is experiencing seismic activity and that things are shifting. Then in the subsequent shot we see a massive protruding structure sticking out of the cracked surface. This just means that they detected the seismic activity and that activity was caused by the red fortress emerging out of the ground. Yes it could have been set at a different location, but I think reusing old content was done so that they could get the most bang out of their buck
I always pictured a union of Hive construction workers, and thralls with hard hats working on the castle, Boomers yellin at acolytes "Savathun aint payin you to sit on your ass, lunch is over" and Wizzard Shop Stuart goin over blue prints lol
@realname4430 yea it's kinda his voice I hear when I think of the boomer yelling at Subordinates " I'm docking your tithes for that red sheet rock you broke when your head exploded, where on a schedule here!"
@@jebalitabb8228 it wasn't hated or loved my opinion it was fun first time for the story but after that it was just a grind to get aspects for your sub class that wasn't fun or enjoyable and my stand is the same on strand I hate the grind that is required to get all fragments and aspects but beyond light was good but in hindsight the story ended in such a dumb way as have many seasons and dlc's prior that it makes the story not worth it since the outcome of beyond light was the reasoning why things happened in season of the seraph as they did because us and the vanguard love to leave things instead of finishing it
I played through shadowkeep and I didn't even realize I was playing the campaign. It was on god just running around killing stuffs with no narrative other than "moon's haunted" and "lmao it would be funny if you kill another one of oryx's bloodline". It's literally just another tuesday for the guardian ngl.
The saving grace for Shadowkeep was that at least all the old content was available for new destiny players to enjoy. When Beyond Light dropped over half the game had been deleted...
The expansion with crota as the mission one boss, then crota as the final mission boss, then Crota again as a Nightmare Mission Boss, then crota AGAIN as the dungeon boss. We fought Crota in D1 already, and he is reused 4 TIMES in this expansion!!
When lightfall got all the hate it got I literally told myself “Shadowkeep was waaaaay worse than this. Why the fuck y’all saying this is the worse DLC?”
Lots of people hopped on the Destiny train around Witch Queen I would imagine, and had basically no frame of reference for Shadowkeep because nobody bothered with that expansion after the fact
I think it's because people excused a lot of Shadowkeep's downfalls as it was Bungie's first time releasing a major expansion independently. Not trying to defend them but that was just the community sentiment around the time.
@@cypherzer0589 Shadowkeep was better because the game hadn't vaulted or sunset anything back then + didn't have a disappointing story like Beyond Light or Lightfall. it just had a nothing story that built up the next expansion, which ended up being a disappointment.
@@paledrakesaying this is kind of weird when Lightfall also had a nothing story -> the point of it being just the witness opening the traveler. However, this led into a super good story! Being Final Shape. I guess we also killed Calus in LF, but like…Calus hadn’t been relevant in forever.
@charleywilson2146 Lightfall added the Veil, which is supposed to be the darkness version of the Traveler. That is super underwhelming and it makes no sense why it would be on Neptune. Also apparently there has been an entire civilization right on Earth's doorstep that no one has noticed which makes no sense. Also again Lightfall never needed to happen, it's beginning and end cutscene is essentially the same scene cut into two scenes. Just add them together and make it the intro cutscene of Final Shape. Honestly it makes no sense that we waited an entire year before we followed the Witness and that he did fuckall during that time. It completely removes any sense of urgency. So that's why Lightfall isn't just a nothing story, it's a story that hurts the lore and pacing of D2.
I’m so glad this got recommended to me. I’m a returning destiny 2 player from the first game and this is the first expansion actually still playable in D2. I actually just finished it over the weekend and I was very underwhelmed. This is what new players start off with, an expansion of busy work and a cliffhanger ending. I already knew about the witness so it worked a bit better for me but I can’t imagine some random player wanting to continue after this.
I hit a bug that prevented my hunter from interacting with an item on the moon that would start a campaign mission. Checked a year or so ago, still not fixed. Never finished the campaign on the hunter. Though hey, if there’s any camping to skip… it’s Curse of Osiris.
Let's not forget the terrible loot in Garden of Salvation! The armor is literally just a slightly altered version of the mechanos ornaments, which were already available before Shadowkeep even launched. They literally copy-pasted ornaments into the raid, because they couldn't be arsed making something unique. Shameful!
I remember getting to the end of Shadowkeep, going into the pyramid, getting hyped. The cutscene in the Black Garden with what seemed to be a representation of the Darkness speaking to me, using my own guardian to do so... And then the campaign ended. Right when it got good.
Going to be taking my two New light friends through this story this weekend. Shame we only got one mission using tanks out of the 3 missions given next to running around patrol (those quests for the armour seem to have been made easier, requiring around 2 lost sector completions rather than an hour of completions mixed with patrols and events) and the Nightmare Hunts. Only benefit that comes is my Hunter friend being able to make an assassin look with Assassin's Cowl. Black shader included as expected.
shadowkeep is the one expansion that consistently gets worse every year. when it came out it was mid, but as time goes by and more things get added, the experience of shadowkeep and its content goes from mid to straight ass
While I can defend certain parts, like some of the added mechanics from this DLC, you're still right. It fucking sucks and the raid being even worse doesn't help.
Shadowkeep is also when they changed how patrols so you can't cycle the selection available. You now have to grind the patrols you have or go to orbit and come back to get the patrol you want.
That review is late but some lore points were explained long ago. I'm pretty sure the scarlett keep was built by Crotas old brood after crota has been slain. Savathun tricked the entire brood to build it. Not excusing the dlc but yeah,a lot of things you gotta dig in like in mant other seasons and expansions.
I have a policy of not looking at lore or anything past the expansions release when it comes to my campaign critiques. It's an excuse for past content, and I don't care much for excuses
13:35 i just made the connection that we're overcoming nightmares the same way the witness overcame his fear and then we would be a fitting disciple for the witness after the final shape
My brother was playing one mission for like 30 minutes until I got home and he asked, "Where are all the enemies?" He was trying to complete a mission that required Dreambane Armor he didn't have. The problem was that he couldn't even start the essence quests to acquire the armor! Our solution was to begin his Lightfall campaign instead.
The main reason this expansion felt underwhelming was because it was their first expansion without Activision, which was a massive cut in workforce. It's obvious why they couldn't develop everything you mentioned.
Shadowkeep was Bungies first content as the only developer after the split with Activision. Vicarious Visions (that is absorbed into Blizzars today) did most of Forsaken etc. so you notice it’s A LOT of reused content and forced planetary bounty patrol between every mission to fill it out, just like seasonal content today.
I remember after the last mission, I was looking through my quests wondering where the next mission was. Little did I know that was it. That was the final mission. wtf.
I believe that even "bad" lore points are actually useful towards the greater scheme. After the Final Shape story and stuff my lore brain expanded so much and seeing all in retrospective enlightens and fascinates me. Also, I Salvation Edged to this video for 15 minutes ngl
Imagine finally bringing a pyramid ship to the game but nothing, absolutely nothing happens with it. Probably the last time I ever got excited for a pve expansion. The only new enemy the pyramid brought is a Tormentor 3 years later
I disagree with what you said when The Witness, or our “ghost” says the traveler abandoned Cayde. It was intentionally phrased like that to antagonize the Traveler and the light as the Witness was always trying to turn us against it.
I especially hate The Scarlet Keep, cause the trailers (and the strike itself) pins Hashladun as the main antagonist of the Shadowkeep DLC. And they just put the strike in the middle of the goddamn campaign and eliminate any sense of “oh there’s big bad!”
Hot take: warmind had a worse campaign than curse of osiris and turned wormgods into really sad version of what they r in the lore (as in power wise). Shadowkeeps first mission was good but the rest was definately the worst Id have to agree. Even the destination is so lazy, they deleted the amazing old D1 skybox and deleted the ambient lighting on the ground AND deleted the day nigh cycle (same for cosmodrome).
Just saw this video less than an hour ago and I’m hooked. You’re reinstalling the bs I’ve been through with Destiny and it’s hilarious. Keep up the great work man
People panning lightfall definitely forgot about shadowkeep. Shadowkeep was dogshit as we all know but the season weren’t better. Undying and worthy were some of the worst season to come out of this game. Dawn was mid and arrivals was the only good part of the entire year. At least lightfall had half decent seasonal content. As a result I quit destiny and missed the entire year of beyond light (which I regret as I’ve heard many of those seasons were great).
I have a quicl question about the pyramind at 3:19 , it's supposed to be associated with the final shape witness dude right? If so, it seems pretty cool that they had the pyramid thing back then but what does that actually mean that the pyramids keep appearing everywhere in this DLC, in beyond light and witch queen edit: I watched the full video and u talk about it
It’s Nezarec’s personal pyramid ship. I’m pretty sure the other ones are under the Witness’ command and act as extensions of its will, except for the one in Witch Queen which is Rhulk’s pyramid ship.
@@provaricus627 i see. it's pretty cool they started this so long ago but maybe they took too long to handle this. that shadowkeep ending is way too vague for something that will pay off in 4 years time. Bungie thinks this is kingdom hearts
I started this game just before beyond light and ran through the campaigns and legitimately couldn't tell that shadow keep was a campaign I just thought it was a story mission peppered in as I unlocked the moon. I've run it twice since and I still couldn't tell you wtf happens.
0:18 "boring gameplay" you say while showing the only fun part of Shadowkeep? xD To fit your narrative, I would use footage of stuff like the nightmare hunts or bounty-esque quest parts! :3 It would drive your point home much better!
I think that Shadowkeep's lackluster state was partly due to the introduction of seasons (or, at least the iteration of seasonal content that spanned from Season 8 to Season 23). I want to be generous and assume that Bungie was still finding their footing with balancing Seasonal and Annual content, but it could be just as likely that Shadowkeep was made less satisfying on purpose to drive invested players to buy Seasons. Whatever the case may have been, the Year 3 Seasons have long since been vaulted, and Shadowkeep doesn't really stand on its own, especially when Forsaken and the three expansions following Shadowkeep (yes, even Lightfall) far exceeded it in quality and amount of content.
Yeah shadowkeep was definitely bad, but I do understand why it was bad. This was during the transition from Activision partnership to bungie solo publishing. In forsaken bungie had the help of several other studios which enabled them to pump out content like three raids, menagerie, forges, etc. Shadowkeep was first expansion where it was literally just bungie and they were migrating the game to steam and f2p. The raid was pretty cool though and definitely one of the more unique raids in the game.
Only like the music from it. To be fair, back when I was pretty new and played shadowkeep, the witness cameo in the music when you first find the pyramid blew me away lol
the only good thing to come out of shadowkeep is eris getting more screentime (I love women who will just summon an eldritch being at a moments notice because I pissed them off) and like, unveiling
First mission was great, the general mystery of what was going on was great, the raid/dungeon were pretty great and the exotics were fantastic. But God the total lack of narrative payoff completely killed the experience. Not unlike lightfall in that regard.
While I agree, it's hard to judge Shadow keep as they lost most of their support as they split from Activision shortly before. And it's story is still better than LF
I enjoyed Shadowkeep more than Beyond Light and by the looks of it Lightfall looked even worse. Honestly it's better to have a nothing story like Shadowkeep than a disappointing story like in Beyond Light and Lightfall. Also beyond the story Beyond Light also introduced sunsetting for both weapons and old content, so it definitely did more harm to the franchise that way. I like how people coped about how Shadowkeep was only lackluster because Bungie just split from Activision and that the next one would be better, just for it to be equally bad if not worse.
Lightfall was way worse than Shadowkeep. At least Shadowkeep was somewhat early in D2’s story so it has the excuse of setting things up. Lightfall was second to last chapter where things should start being wrapping up with big stakes and bigger revelations. It has no excuse. So much hype for a filler story that only exists to set up The Final Shape (and it didn’t even do that very well).
I absolutely agree. I’m a titan main, the only expansion I have never touched on my titan is Shadowkeep. I’m pretty sure I’m 1 out of whatever the end of the quest is😅. Of course i have done it but not on my main.😂
Lets see here... I hate the fact that 0 of the exotics were available when the Campaign went live. EVERY EXOTIC required you to either complete the story on that character, complete the raid, complete the dungeon or just a variation of all 3.
i think a most destiny expansions have their fans, or at least excuses. for instance, one could call curse of osiris the expansion that made bungie catch on to the cliff they were headed towards and allow them to change course in time. shadowkeep? i have never met someone who liked shadowkeep. i tell my friends that the only reason they should get shadowkeep is to get divinity and xenophage.
Campaign story mid But gameplay was fun and i appreciated the touched up Moon. I occasionally love going back and replaying it. Also The Scarlet Keep strike is a great time.
People say that shadowkeep is better than lightfall i don’t know how they see that everything about shadowkeep was terrible the location the story the gameplay
The biggest downgrade over Forsaken is that bungie had to release the first season along side it to make it feel like like a bigger expnsion than it actually is. If you take season of the undying away you end up with such a piss poor excuse of an expansion which you still paid full price for.
This isnt even slight cap, after the high that was Forsaken, Shadowkeep made me quit within a few weeks lol, also it brought us one of the worst implemented features ever, champions.
“The guardians are responding to a seismic event on the the moon… why is the there a giant red castle out of no where on the same location as the first game like did it come out of the ground or something?!?” DO YOU HEAR YOUR SELF MY GUY
Ok so, im not a huge lore expert either, but us gaining and using stasis was actully the best possible outcome according to the exo stranger. Of we reject it, we lose to Eramis and the last city is destroyed and so to the traveler with very limited Witness intervintion. Or We sucumb to the darkness completly, either getting all guardians to join the darkness, or be killed permanently, and the traveler destroyed. But in the current outcome, we control and bind stasis to our will. Becuase theough both Lightfall and Beyond light we learn that the darkness in not inherently bad, just like the light is not inherently good. So to say we have become guardians/disciples of darkness becuase we control stasis is a little wrong, but your theory of what you think will happen in the end of the final shape is cool and even possible, even if i dont personal think thats what is going to happen.
Yeah the theory has a ton of holes in it and I realized as I went along, but I left it in because it thought it was a bit of fun theorizing anyway. It's just a theory!!
Honestly it woulda been better if they'd used the nightmare stuff the same way the lucent give use their light. Shoulda been an extra superpower with tangible results.
Glad to see people realized how bad the glorified season called shadowkeep was. There was only one good thing in the whole expansion which was a pit of heresy.
