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The toughest factor about Future 2 is getting any of your pals to play it. Followers of Bungie’s formidable and imaginative sci-fi shooter have lengthy hoped for a easy on-ramp that might make it simpler to get lapsed gamers and newcomers again into its universe. Future 2’s new “Starter Pack” would possibly sound like precisely that. As a substitute, it’s an expensive bundle of random gadgets that followers can’t cease dunking on.
Season of the Want went dwell right this moment with an thrilling trailer and new missions revolving round gathering dragon eggs to win over an outdated enemy. However gamers additionally quietly seen a brand new DLC add-on on PSN, Xbox, and Steam that went dwell alongside the most recent replace. It’s called the Destiny 2 Starter Pack, it prices $15, and it’s one of many extra ridiculous microtransactions I’ve seen. Opposite to what its title would possibly recommend, the Starter Pack doesn’t embody any expansions, missions, or story content material. It’s only a random assortment of stuff meant to “supercharge” gamers’ arsenals. Right here’s what’s included:
- Traveler’s Chosen
- Ruinous Effigy
- Sleeper Simulant
- Unique Ship
- Unique Sparrow
- Unique Ghost Shell
- 125,000 Glimmer
- 50 Enhancement Cores
- 5 Enhancement Prisms
- 1 Ascendant Shard
These first three gadgets are all outdated Unique weapons which were within the recreation since 2019 or earlier than. They’re principally advantageous however solely synergize with particular builds and might all be acquired from the Tower kiosk with out an excessive amount of fuss. The ship, sparrow, and ghost shell are purely beauty and fully depending on private style. For my part no less than, those within the Starter Pack are removed from a number of the recreation’s higher designs.
The supplies, in the meantime, are fairly stingy. Glimmer is Future 2’s principal in-game foreign money, earned by doing something and all the pieces. Cores, prisms, and Ascendant Shards (what gamers lovingly name “golf balls”) are for focusing engrams, rerolling gear, and crafting new gadgets, none of which is especially useful for brand spanking new gamers, nor very significant within the portions provided. It’s not even sufficient to absolutely masterwork a brand new piece of armor. It’s a weird array of accouterments to purchase for greater than the price of a whole season of the sport.
“I’d say that is pay to win, however actually it’s only a waste of cash,” wrote one participant on the Future subreddit. “Pay to lose.” One other wrote, “That is pathetic. 3 mid exotics, a couple of crap cosmetics and a few supplies isn’t price that a lot. An actual starter pack could be weapons and outdated DLCs.”
There are three broad obstacles to gamers getting again into Future 2. The primary is that many of the story is now not within the recreation as a consequence of content material vaulting. The second is that Future 2’s “New Mild” marketing campaign stays fairly barebones and presents no actual route with end-game actions. And the third is that regardless of ostensibly being free-to-play, all the expansions are paid and unlocking entry to all the pieces remains to be fairly costly. Shadowkeep, the underwhelming 2019 growth, remains to be usually $25. The Starter Pack simply provides to the noise, complicated gamers with deceptive descriptions like “Fly between locations in your new Unique ship.” Narrator voice: Unique ships are simply customized loading display screen animations.
The Starter Pack additionally comes within the context of layoffs at Bungie amid the delay of 2024’s The Ultimate Form growth and reported income shortfalls. At a time when the studio is seemingly determined for cash, the $15 bundle simply underlines the gulf between gamers and whoever is main Future 2’s monetization technique. It’s one factor to exploit whales, however as Future 2 gamers are declaring, the brand new Starter Pack appears squarely geared toward making the most of new gamers who received’t know any higher. Within the phrases of one in every of them, “That is some cell recreation shit.”
Replace 11/29/2023 6:09 p.m. ET: Bungie seems to have eliminated Future 2’s controvertial Starter Pack from storefornts, together with Valve’s storefront. “Discover: Future 2: Starter Pack is now not obtainable on the Steam retailer,” reads an replace on the Steam itemizing. PlayStation Retailer listings, in the meantime, return error pages.
Along with roasting the microtransaction on social media and Reddit, some gamers had additionally tried to review-bomb the bundle and alter the Steam tags for it to issues like “psychological horror.”
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