Bungie’s newest Future 2 showcase was an enormous blowout for its upcoming enlargement, The Remaining Form. Although the studio’s been comparatively mum on the enlargement, which is able to shut out the ten-year story the studio’s been telling for the reason that first Future launched in September of 2014, it lastly revealed a few of its hand, together with a brand new subclass, enemy faction, and an thrilling new class merchandise that threatens to uncork the potential of buildcrafting in Future 2.
Breaking the sport
First up, Bungie led the showcase with the introduction of the latest subclass, which it’s calling Prismatic. As an alternative of specializing in one ingredient like earlier Mild and Darkish subclasses have, Prismatic is greatest regarded as Future 2’s reply to multiclassing. Gamers will now be capable of use facets of each archetypes of subclasses concurrently and it appears fucking bonkers, dude. That is the type of factor that gamers have dreamt of, however couldn’t presumably be carried out as a result of it will throw the whole lot of the sport into chaos (or so some thought). Effectively, Bungie goes ahead with it anyway, and it appears dynamic and chaotic as all hell.
In anecdotes offered by Bungie employees through the showcase, the builds sound completely busted. One member of the staff talked about slowing down enemies with a Stasis grenade, throwing a shuriken into the group to skinny out their numbers, after which throwing one other Photo voltaic grenade which you can shoot to detonate to wash up. One other mixture consisted of unleashing Strand hatchlings, which operate like a pet that pursues enemies, whereas concurrently throwing out a Stasis turret to successfully grow to be a crowd management machine.
When utilizing the Prismatic subclass, gamers will see two gauges above their weapons and talents that symbolize each the Mild and Darkish. As you deal harm with Mild or Darkish talents, the gauges will fill, permitting gamers to enter “transcendence” when each are maxed out. Transcendence successfully works like a second tremendous capability that buffs the participant. Whereas transcendent, every class will acquire a brand new grenade sort that mixes two completely different subclasses, like a Stasis/Void hybrid grenade for Warlock or a Strand/Arc grenade for Titans.
Utilizing transcendence can even restore gamers’ grenade and melee talents, that are usually on cooldown, that means that gamers can successfully chain the utilization of each right into a transcendence after which deploy them once more to do large harm. Talking of, transcendence additionally grants harm bonuses that stack on high of ones that gamers would possibly get from different class talents or current weapon perks.
The builders described Prismatic as an “superior subclass the place you’ve gotten extra construct crafting choices, extra potential combos, extra fragments than you usually get, extra fragment slots to socket than you’d usually get,” and it reveals.
The Remaining Form can even introduce a brand new unique class merchandise that steals the perks from different unique gear and combines them into one super-powerful merchandise. This contains perks for unique gear that was beforehand class-specific, that means that Titans will be capable of steal talents that have been beforehand unique to Warlocks and vice-versa. The unique perks on the category merchandise might be randomized, however Bungie is hoping that the flexibility to mix them with stolen perks will incentivize gamers to pursue unique perks in addition to gear with the intention to make game-breaking combos of talents. One developer said, “We wish it to really feel a little bit damaged.”
A horrifying new enemy
In final 12 months’s middling Lightfall enlargement, Bungie launched a nightmarish enemy sort referred to as Tormentors that functioned as mini-bosses all through the marketing campaign, and it’s constructing off of this concept by including an entire enemy faction impressed by them and the Witness, the large dangerous on the middle of Future 2. This new enemy faction known as the Dread and they’re abominations. I can’t wait to combat them. Amongst their ranks are a winged “gunbat” referred to as the Grim, which may suppress participant talents with a screech, and acrobatic “melee bruisers” referred to as Husks. Killing Husks “the improper manner” will trigger one thing the staff is looking a Geist to come out of them and pursue gamers.
Two different enemy varieties, referred to as Attendants and Weavers, will be capable of use Stasis and Strand talents on the participant, respectively. The Weaver specifically will be capable of pull gamers from throughout the sector, which is one in every of many firsts among the many new enemy faction. It’s been some time since Future 2 obtained a completely new enemy sort, so it’s actually thrilling to see Bungie go all out on a faction that isn’t some type of reskin of an current one.
All in all, a lot of what Bungie confirmed off right now is the type of batshit stuff I’ve wished from the sport for a very long time. It is usually the type of content material you may actually solely make if you’re nearing the end line and need to throw all the things you may on the wall. Future 2 typically appears like an important fantasy weighed down by the realities of getting to be a recreation which must be balanced with the intention to be enjoyable for everybody. The entire chaos on show right now flies within the face of that want for stability, but it surely additionally appears prefer it’s going to make for an exhilarating closing chapter earlier than Future 2 strikes into one other part of its life. Paired with the discharge of Into the Mild right now, Future 2 is finally doing the factor it ought to’ve accomplished a very long time in the past: punching the goddamn throttle and refusing to look again.