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The new Prismatic subclass inDestiny 2: The Final Shapeis the closestBungiehas come to canonizing fan fiction.
For years, players have dreamed up a hybrid subclass combining our Light and Darkness powers.
Oh, and the rest of The Final Shape seemsreallygood too.
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From the very first mission, the campaign is focused, pacey, and delivers rich mechanical complexity.
Multiple puzzle-lite systems are woven in, nudging the cadence of combat and exploration ever so slightly.
It’s just enough to shake me out of my engrained Destiny stupor of casually shooting dudes.
This isn’t unprecedented for Destiny 2 campaigns, but The Final Shape has gone the extra mile.
The Dread feel meaningfully different, and with them in the mix, so does Destiny 2.
The destination is a fascinating caricature.
That Light and Dark contrast shines through again; verdant cityscapes contrast ominous chasms and skyboxes.
Giant Ghosts and sunlit verandas are paired with blighted pits and sand-beaten wastelands.
Bungie is back on a horror trip, which is always terrific news.
It is all of Destiny all at once, filtered through an unnerving wrongness.
Dread it, run from it
This sense of reflection carries into combat.
It’s hard to overstate how much this changes the feel of encounters moment-to-moment.
We finally have an all-new enemy race, and it’s a good one.
The Dread are tricky to deal with.
They force you to look up and around in a way Destiny 2 rarely does.
Some Dread use Strand or Stasis to debuff and crowd-controlyou, layering in more hazards to avoid.
The Dread feel meaningfully different, and with them in the mix, so does Destiny 2.
It’s harder to evaluate The Final Shape’s story chops right now.
It is, in a word, serious.
The new subclass enhances the story that the expansion tries to tell instead of distracting from it.
It feels like cheating.
And boy will I be doing some buildcrafting.
Class-specific verbs ricochet off one another like billiard balls, and the resulting, clacking chaos is electrifying.
It feels like cheating.
I took this build into a Legend mission and didn’t die a single time.
Will it replace Well of Radiance?
Do I want to keep using it?
Titan’s new Void axe-throwing Super is unexpectedly potent, too, and mighty fun besides.
This provides a burst of abilities that helps sell the fantasy of a second, smaller Super.
And you are, of course, still using your guns while Transcendent, unlike in actual roaming Supers.
Transcendence genuinely feels like a tiny Super, and its shockingly high uptime adds a game-within-a-game pacing to Prismatic.
You spend a lot of time Transcendent.
Endless possibilities
Two-in-one Exotic class items ratchet this up even farther.
(you could read up on all theDestiny 2 Exotic Class Item perks for Prismatic buildshere.)
The class and these class items play off one another in an engrossing way.
That might be changing my melee, swapping my Super, or using an Aspect I normally dislike.
There are so many potential builds that it’s hard to predict anything right now.
Bungie’s really cooking here.
Destiny 2: The Final Shape’s release date is set for June 4.
