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Warmind is the second expansion from the Destiny 2 Season Pass, and opens up Mars and its frozen area, not seen in the prior game in your pursuit for Rasputin and the Valkyrie weapon. This expansion finally introduces you to Ana Bray, even though she is, literally, only in the first few story missions and then becomes a vendor. You also finally get to meet Rasputin. Both of these have been mentioned in logs and Grimoire since the first game so it pieces things together and fills in a few gaps.
The campaign itself is short. If you rush, you can get through it in around two hours, while taking it at an average pace, you are looking at three hours tops. There are only 5 missions altogether, and you come across your usual enemies: there’s the Cabal for good measure just to make things a bit more interesting, but you will be facing off against the Hive… yet again. This time, instead of creating a new enemy, they have just added ice to the Hive (looks like ice armour), but other than that, they are exactly the same as they always have been since the first game.
Bosses are the usual, throw in a few stronger Ogres with loads of enemies to pick off, and later you have a large Wizard, Nokris, who is the younger sibling of Crota from the first Destiny game’s The Taken King expansion. You also get to meet Xol, who is a God, as such, or so the Hive think and a true being of darkness. This boss is, literally, a large worm and the fight just pits you in a small arena, throwing the Valkyrie weapon at its open mouth. I managed to take it out on second attempt in about two minutes.
The story side of things is good, in all fairness, albeit extremely short. I have a feeling that this, and The Curse Of Osiris, is just setting things up for a larger expansion that will be released before Christmas, and be as big as The Taken King was for the first game.
Now Mars, itself, is a lot better than the small space that we experienced before now. Once you complete the campaign, you have access to the patrols there, and there are is a metric ton of stuff to find and collect. There is also the new Escalation Protocol: activate one of the towers and you get the hive swarming in on you, with you having to fend them of. It is pretty fun, especially, if there are other guardians around and you can all band together to survive. The only downside to this is thatrecommended light is 380, so you have to grind your way up to this.
The same can be said about other activities here. Yes, you have your patrols, etc., but once you have seen the content on Mars, it is back to doing what you have been since Day 1. You will be redoing the same stuff, over and over, until you finally get a drop that will upgrade a weapon or some armour. I started out at around 335 light and have spent around 12 hours playing the expansion (multiplayer, strikes etc) and have only reached light 443. The player level has been upped from 26 to 30, but you will fly through that. It’s a bit pointless really, as you need to work on light/power.
So the grind is back again. The heroic strikes I was playing, now have a recommended light of 350, making them extremely tough. The mission where you fight Nokris at the end, is now a strike and boy, is it tough. I was playing with two other players around the same level and we just couldn’t beat him, so we all ended up quitting out of the strike. Why they have done this, I don’t know. Even the strikes that I have played many times before have had the light requirement upped to 350: go figure.
There are a few new multiplayer maps, which I’ve played for around 7 hours (total, not daily), and not once have I seen one of the new maps, I actually only seen one of the maps from Osiris during that time, so it has been same old same old again. The good thing though, is all multiplayer maps are now available to all players; The ‘Osiris‘ maps were separate, but no longer: they are all available whether you own the expansions or not, which is a good move.
Overall, Warmind is great for Lore hunters as it does fill in quite a few gaps, but it just felt rushed and adds little to the game. I did enjoy the story, while the multiplayer is as strong as ever. The new Mars area is a decent size with 2 landing zones and is a pretty good zone to explore.
There is also a new raid available, which I have yet to play as clan members are just starting to get back to the game now, so hopefully I will get through it in the next few days.
It has felt a bit of a chore going back to Destiny 2 after 2 months away. There doesn’t appear to be as many people at the tower social space as there was when The Curse Of Osiris released. The multiplayer and strike matchmaking is taking longer than it used to, so I am wondering if this is down to less people playing now than what were a few months back.
As a side note, you can pick the base game up for PC from the Humble Monthly Bundle for £10, presently. It does require that you have a Blizzard Battle Net account and their program installed on your PC (similar to Steam) to install and play it. (Available till around June 2nd 2018)
Overall: 5.5/10
Thanks to the Youtube channels featured for the gaming footage.
Destiny 2 is out now PS4, Xbox One and PC/Steam, and click on the packshot for the full-size version.
Important info:
- Developer: Bungie
- Publisher: Activision
- Players: single player, co-op, multi-player
Retro at heart and lover of all things ’80s, especially the computers, the music and the awesome movies and TV shows! Crazy huge retro gaming collection spanning the ’80s and ’90s with hundreds of tapes, discs and carts for various machines on top of a 600+ strong Steam library that is ever-growing. No I am not a serial hoarder, just a dedicated retro gamer!