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Alongside Destiny 2's final update, Bungie has released an all-in-one bundle collecting every last piece of premium content for the MMO, and with a hefty discount, it's among the best ways you can spend $25 right now.
Destiny 2: The Collection is now available on all platforms (on Steam here, for easy browsing). Even at $70, it offers reasonable savings and a ton of fantastic experiences. At $25, it's a steal – nearly a decade of fun for less than what I've paid for individual expansions. It's still confusing, with activities like dungeons and raids piecemealed out, but at least you can buy everything in one go. Here's what you get:
- Forsaken pack (20 Exotic weapons, some Exotic armor, Shattered Throne dungeon, Last Wish raid)
- Shadowkeep pack (15 Exotic weapons, Scarlet Keep Nightfall Strike, Pit of Heresy dungeon, Garden of Salvation raid – Shadowkeep campaign not included as it's open to all players)
- Beyond Light pack (over 15 Exotics, two Nightfalls, Deep Stone Crypt raid - campaign not included as it's likewise available to everyone)
- Bungie 30th Anniversary Pack (Gjallarhorn Exotic rocket launcher, suite of cosmetics, Grasp of Avarice dungeon)
- The Witch Queen expansion
- Lightfall expansion
- The Final Shape expansion
- The Edge of Fate expansion
- Star Wars-themed Renegades mini-expansion
- Dungeon Key pack (lets you play the other dungeons in the game)
This collection does come with caveats for new players, many of them at the root of the game's death. Also, that's the big one: development of Destiny 2 has ended, so the game is frozen in time.
Additionally, Destiny 2's original campaigns, up to and including the beloved Forsaken expansion, are no longer in the game. This obviously makes it more difficult to get into the story, all but requiring some help from YouTube summaries.
Bungie deleted this paid content outright, or replaced it with those trimmed-down "packs" that basically just preserve some gear and activities, and shuffled it into the Destiny Content Vault, a technical half-measure so damning that it's a wonder the game survived it.
The DCV's release was a decision that frustrated everyone, including Bungie: hack off parts of the game, or run into enormous technical problems that seemingly could've killed the whole thing – and, arguably, did in the long run. Over the years, I spoke to several Destiny developers who expressed hopes that they'd find ways around the DCV through tech and engine upgrades made under the hood, but those never materialized and the game has been forever left with huge holes. I realize that every game and engine is unique, but it remains baffling to see Destiny 2 unable to stay content-complete in a world where the likes of Warframe and World of Warcraft exist.
The thin silver lining is that Destiny 2's Light and Darkness saga, which is basically just the story of the game now, was only truly codified in the Beyond Light expansion onward, so those are the key bits.
You may have deduced that I have my misgivings with how Destiny 2 was handled despite being a thousands-of-hours fan. Let's just rip the band-aid off: Destiny 2 may have the single worst new-player experience in the history of MMOs, and it's never going to get better now that the game is dead.
A big part of that is just how expensive and confusing it has been to buy the game, with high and unintuitive costs putting a big wall in front of would-be Kinderguardians. I was able to jump into Final Fantasy 14 without issue because all I had to do was press the "buy everything" button. Destiny 2 has never really had that – until now, of course.
"Better late than never" doesn't even begin to cover it, but Destiny 2 is too good to rot in perpetuity. Most of the campaigns and end-game activities are so fun that everyone with a passing interest in the history and future of shooters should give them a go, and frankly it still has the best gunplay ever crafted. Not bad for $25.
