Bungie's Destiny 2 released in 2017 but I only begun playing it late 2020. The reason? It's disastrous launch. Destiny 1 was a winning combination but Bungie took a risk with the sequel changing core mechanics, and the risk did not pay off... Initially. 

Skip to the release of Season of arrivals and Destiny 2 has gone free-to-play, luring in gamers to see what we've been missing for years. And it turns out we've been missing a lot. 

While the graphics on my Xbox one are definitely dated, the art style in Destiny 2 is breathtaking. I have never played a game where I will drop everything in the in-game world and just admire the sky of the distant planet that I'm exploring. Bungie didn't need to put so much effort into what most developers consider secondary but I'm so glad they did. There are even YouTube channels dedicated to time-lapse footage of scenic areas of the game, that's how pretty this game is. 

The music only needs one sentence to review: It's good enough that I'll happily listen to the OST on YouTube, it's epic. 

The gameplay is a mix of Halo (I wonder why) and *insert MMORPG here* with armor and weapons having perks and stats that can always be improved upon, always giving you an incentive to grind in the hopes of finding that armor piece with just +1 in the stat you're chasing. 

I played for many weeks before finishing up nearly all of the content available for free players (which was a lot. This game really sucked me in). When I realised the expansions were free on Xbox games pass it seemed like a no-brainer, instead of paying full price for them I could pay a small amount each month and get hundreds of other games too. 

And thank god I did because other than explaining the story line and lore, the old expansions "Forsaken" and "Shadowkeep" bring nothing of use to my character. A couple of days before I went pay to play Bungie "vaulted" a huge amount of content to make way for the new expansion "Beyond light" and by doing so made the old expansions "legacy", basically something to play through as nostalgia, getting either outdated loot or nothing at all. 

Needless to say I felt a little duped. Especially as in the first few weeks of the new expansion even as a DLC owner there wasn't that much to do. Thankfully with the addition of community events and the incredible deep stone crypt raid I didn't feel that way for long. And Bungie has promised to reopen vaulted planets once they've been improved. Fingers crossed for my favourite: Mars. 

Is it worth buying the expansions full price? Absolutely not with the exception of Beyond light. But once the next expansion is released that will also be obsolete thanks to Bungies horrible "sunsetting" system. So if you've played for free and want to continue I fully recommend getting on Games pass. 

See you in Gambit!