Destiny is a game about orbs. It began with a giant orb (The Traveler) hovering over the last city on earth in a post-apocalyptic near future. The main thing you do in the sci-fi MMO is shoot enemies to get loot, which they leave behind in various colored orbs. Most raids involved at least one orb-based mechanic. And now Destiny 2 has taken the orb to its natural conclusion: transforming players into one.
The newest expansion, The Edge of Fate, has a new mechanic called Matterspark that makes players become balls of light that roll around like little glowing Samus Arans to navigate secret tube passageways. It is without a doubt the worst thing Destiny has ever forced me to do.
That’s not hyperbole, nor is intended as a slight against the very thoughtful developers at Bungie. I simply do not like taking a break from what Destiny 2 does very well—shooting—to do something it does very poorly—platforming as a third-person orb. It feels floaty, sluggish, and a bit chaotic, like trying to navigate a marble through a wooden labyrinth using a magnetic tether. The effect is mildly dizzying. It’s especially bad on PC.
It doesn’t help that Matterspark is one of the very first things The Edge of Fate campaign introduces you to. In addition to transforming into slithering sphere to reach new areas, there are also generators you can only power when you’re an electric ball, forcing you to constantly shift between forms to bring down barriers and progress the mission.
My friend came over last night for dinner. He’s one of the people I keep trying to convince to play Destiny 2 with me. He saw me puttering around combat like a golf ball stuck in a sand trap and howled with laughter. There is absolutely no way I’m convincing him to buy The Edge of Fate now.
I was skeptical of Matterspark, since Bungie originally revealed it in a livestream in May. Turning into a ball and reaching secret places in the Metroid franchise is cool because those games are specifically designed around exploration, backtracking, and experimentation. Destiny 2 is not. It’s a game about loading into a sci-fi obstacle course and ruthlessly murdering everything in sight as quickly as possible.
It’s certainly played with more open-ended exploration over the years, both in terms of platforming and in terms of shooting puzzles that unlock hidden secrets. Turning into an orb, unfortunately, doesn’t play to either of those strengths. It makes platforming feel worse and disables my guns. In that way, Matterspark is part of a worrying trend in modern Destiny, one that pursues novelty at the risk of sidelining the reason I actually want to play the game: the best-feeling shooting of any FPS ever.
The Edge of Fate makes a pretty poor first-impression in general. My Destiny 2 hype train currently has a full head of steam, but it’s already threatening to be derailed. I don’t like Kepler yet, the new zone which is sparrow-less and feels overly constricted while at the same time lacking a clear vibe to spark the imagination. It’s a lot of rocks with alien pustules growing on them. I don’t like the new streamlined Ops menu that feels like a Call of Duty HQ funnel, or that the more creative planet map it replaces has been desaturated to signal its forced obsolescence.
It’s nice—a relief even!—seeing gear scores reset to 10 as we begin the power climb anew, but I would prefer to skip over the blues (rare loot) and get right to the good stuff again (purple legendries/exotics). The new gear chase and upcoming raid might be The Edge of Fate’s saving grace. A completely new system means chasing new weapons and armor in order to take advantage of the most powerful builds. The grind could be fun. It could also be incredible tedious. But I’ll take that over being subjected to another Matterspark objective.
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