All of the real credit goes to mcraejohnny who gathered all the info. Now it's been a while since I've updated this list.
So in grand internet tradition, I'm putting together a FAQ/guide listing all of the cards and I need your help! Presage is a strong reminder of what Destiny 2 does best, and-with any luck-a sign of Bungie's priorities for the rest of the year.If you are like me, you probably can't stand the fact that there are these loot cards out in the world that we know nothing about.
Bungie seems to be betting that, by surprise releasing it early in the season, the community response will be just as effective. Presage, though, doesn't appear on Season of the Chosen's promo material. This is how most live service games seem to operate. New content was given away upfront via roadmap announcements-the need to advertise each season to potential players overriding the thrill of a cool community moment. In Year 3, post-Shadowkeep, Bungie's seasonal model meant that players knew most of what was going to happen. Presage also makes me hopeful for Destiny 2's fourth year. By doubling down on the horror-an almost Dead Space-style exploration of a decrepit ship on which something has clearly gone wrong-it's exactly the kind of design space that lets Destiny 2 experiment with what it can be.
While Presage isn't timed, and has a much stronger relationship with the season's story, it nonetheless continues this legacy. Zero Hour, meanwhile, was set in the ruins of the old tower-an emotive, nostalgic choice used for great effect.
As a large-scale jumping puzzle, The Whisper was filled with subtle design choices designed to troll the player-from the broken ledge put in the perfect place to punish an inattentive Guardian, to the giant room full of tricky, precise jumps that you can entirely skip by crouchwalking into a hidden passage. They're often some of the game's best content-more experimental, challenging or thematically interesting than many of its standard missions.Īs timed missions, both The Whisper and Zero Hour were light on direct story beats, but the nature of the ticking clock shifts the focus instead to the relationship between player and designer. But Destiny 2's best secrets aren't just throwaway asides. Sure, many live service games court mystery, hiding Easter eggs or even ARG-style teases for future seasons. Presage's existence suggests good things for Season of the Chosen's legacy.Ī lot is made of the things Destiny 2 gets wrong, but I'd argue these quests are one of the things that help it stand apart from its peers. The release of a secret exotic quest can be the difference between a good and a bad season in the community's memory. Zero Hour, then, was the event of the season-a source of memes, reaction videos and one of the ugliest ships in Destiny history. And even the new Gambit mode, while good, was something of a niche addition-Gambit, it seems, will never be beloved by the community at large. Its base activity, The Reckoning, was enjoyable enough, but courted frustration through its low weapon droprates, and bosses that were all-too-eager to stomp you off its long, narrow bridge as a counter to players' increasingly absurd abilities. Throughout Destiny 2's life, no statement hits harder than the appearance of a secret mission.ĭestiny 2's second secret exotic quest, Zero Hour, appeared during Season of the Drifter-up to then a low point for arguably the game's best year. The other is impassive and monolithic, responding slowly and cautiously, but dramatically. One side is a disparate morasse of angry, impatient, often conflicting voices-a roiling storm of changing opinions and desires. Live service games are often a weird, asynchronous conversation between player and developer. Bungie even stopped telling players where Xur was hiding each weekend. Later that year, Forsaken arrived to great acclaim, bringing back some of the friction to its systems. Whisper, then, felt like Bungie recapturing some of the magic and nostalgia from the original game, and giving players a taste of the direction Destiny 2 was moving.