This week’s major mid-season patch for Destiny 2 gave us more than we bargained for. A slew of balance changes came with an equally long list of bugs, as well as an extra mission no one was expecting. It’s somewhat customary to get an epilogue just before a new season begins, but since there’s still six or seven weeks left before Season of Defiance ends, it seems like this one came early.
Mission: Retribution is an all-out assault on the Shadow Legion flagship. Instead of infiltrating a pyramid ship to rescue hostages as we’ve done all season, we’re finally ready to bring the fight directly to the Witness’ forces and to show them, in the wake of Amanda’s death, that we aren’t afraid to die for the cause. Mara is able to imbue us with enough of her power that the entire Defiance crew can travel through the Ascendant Plane with us and bring down the ship. It’s a short mission through some familiar Shadow Legion ship arenas, and in the end Crow congratulates us for a battle well fought.
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It didn’t think much of Mission: Retribution when it was over. It’s getting a little annoying to go on missions ‘with’ our friends only to never see them because they’re fighting somewhere else, and framing this as a group effort falls kind of flat when we can’t actually fight alongside our comrades. The purpose of the mission is a little confusing too. Crow says we’re invading the Shadow Legion flagship to bring it down, but I thought the ship on Neomuna shaped like Calus’ face was supposed to be their flagship. If not, then what is it? I don’t know what bringing down this particular ship was supposed to do, or how it was related to the hostages the Shadow Legion has been collecting. Now that I think of it, whywerethey taking hostages? The ending didn’t have much emotional resonance because I don’t understand what we were doing this season at all - which is becoming a recurring issue in Destiny.
It’s strange how much Season of Defiance mirrors the Lightfall campaign. They both feature a conflict with the Shadow Legion that isn’t well explained, they both kill off a minor character in a way that feels manipulative, and they both leave us with more questions than answers. After all the backlash the Lightfall campaign got, Bungie told us that Lightfall’s story only began in the campaign, but that it will continue throughout the year with each seasonal story. We’re a quarter of the way through the year now, and I don’t feel like Season of Defiance has moved things forward in a meaningful way, or answered any of our lingering questions.
It’s common for the expansion-attached seasons to have a smaller scope than others, but looking back at Season of the Chosen and Season of the Risen, those seasons did a lot more to develop characters and move the story forward than Season of Defiance did. Season of the Chosen brought Caiatl into the spotlight and laid the groundwork for her relationship with Zavala, while Risen finally gave Saladin the spotlight and delivered an important chapter in Crow’s path to finding his place in the Vanguard. We don’t know what Season of Defiance will lead to, but even without the benefit of knowing what comes next, this season, at least narratively, was much weaker than most.
I’ve said my piece onwhy Amanda’s death felt unearnedalready, and I don’t think anything that has happened since has made that moment any stronger.Reddick’s performance in Zavala’s eulogyfor Amanda was beautiful and painful, but it didn’t make the decision to kill her off any better. Season of Defiance is built around a sacrifice, seemingly just to establish that the stakes have been raised. If that’s all we get out of this season then it wasn’t a good use of the limited time that Destiny has to tell its story this year, and this week’s mission didn’t help.
Next:Season Of The Deep Will Be Destiny’s Most Important Season This Year
