A Non-Spoiler Review Of 'Destiny 2: The Edge Of Fate' Campaign
Image Source: Bungie
Destiny 2: The Edge of Fate, the first new content release of the Year of Prophecy, the first installment of the new Destiny Saga, the Fate Saga, launched this past week. CultureSlate has been taking a look at the game and its world in preparation for this new Saga, and for further explorations of the universe as the Star Wars-influenced Renegades expansion is due for release later this year. But, in the here and now, here’s our review of this first chapter in the sci-fi action-adventure shooter title.
Gameplay
Gameplay in The Edge of Fate is, unfortunately, something of a mixed bag. The new mechanics that make up the expansion’s emphasis on exploration, Matterspark, Mattermorph, and Relocator, are each generally fun, but locating and accessing each can be a chore at times during puzzle sections. Additionally, navigation itself is an issue at times, with waypoints placed in such a way that even simple traversal between areas might cause a player to second guess if they are truly going the right way when a waypoint is all the way through a wall, far away from them, and not through the door immediately in front of them that looks like it carries them forward.
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Image Source: Bungie
But aside from these issues (which might vary in opinion from player to player), the gunplay, abilities, and combat gameplay of Destiny 2 remain solid. The two new enemies, one for the Fallen and the other for the Vex, add new threats players will have to keep an eye out for both on Kepler and off as their presence expands to the wider game. The new weapons all have a great design and drop freely from quests and chests, allowing players to quickly build a full arsenal. As for the new armor sets and drops, while the full depth of Armor 3.0 was not yet tapped into by this reviewer, the new system seems like it will work to create and support some very powerful builds, some of which were already discussed before launch and are now appearing after it.
Graphics
As usual, Destiny 2 is a gorgeous game, and Kepler is no exception as a new destination with four environments, supplemented by a fifth hub area, and a sixth section that incorporates elements of all four but also its own stunning vistas. All of it is still anchored by a rocky, craggy terrain that avoids looking boring by the use of foliage, structures, and the yellow-green fungus that has spread across the planetoid using the underground tunnels and passages. The appearance of wildlife on Kepler is a fun detail, with little insects scuttling away as a player rushes through a previously quiet cavern tunnel, or beautiful toucan-like birds taking flight as a player appears as a spawn point. There are ultimately few to no graphical issues across the game as a whole.
Story
Image Source: Bungie
It is exceedingly difficult to discuss the story campaign for The Edge of Fate without revealing spoilers. But it is an excellent product, from top to bottom. The main quest extensively explores characters brand new to the franchise, and those we’ve known (or thought we’ve known) over the years, while the focus on the Nine really helps to turn expectations on their head. These beings are definitely strange, and each has a unique personality that briefly gets time to shine.
Two who get some major focus are Nine (IX), who is anchored to the solar system’s sun, and Three (III), who is linked to Earth. But new players shouldn’t be discouraged from playing by the game’s vast world of lore. The new character of Lodi, described by developers as a fish out of water, allows for a lot of natural dialogue and exploration about the universe and current state of Destiny’s world to help catch people up on recent events and villains.
Image Source: Bungie
It isn’t just the main story quests where the lore and story shine through, but also in the side quests. Even if some are simpler tasks, and very familiar to any gamer, the discussions that frequently appear during the time spent completing them grant players a lot more depth on the world and its characters than the far simpler side-quests of campaigns in years past. There are also a lot of them, several per major region of Kepler, and these help reinforce the interconnected nature of the environment by having players pass through areas previously explored in campaign content, though with a different objective and slightly different navigation at times.
Pros And Cons
Given our incredible praise for the main campaign and the general positives seen elsewhere in this review, where does The Edge of Fate fail? Unfortunately, in the department of bugs, the biggest is tied into the game’s sounds and music. While exploring and wandering, Kepler sees the soundtrack generally play out fine, but a bizarre muffling error repeatedly crops up once combat begins. It is not consistent either, with the soundtrack sometimes blazing to life in an epic campaign moment while weapon sounds are almost entirely killed off, or the complete opposite happens. Sometimes, you can barely hear anything at all, as if the Guardian is wearing earmuffs. It unfortunately robbed several big combat moments of their gravitas, though the issue is thankfully confined to gameplay, with the campaign’s cutscenes remaining unaffected.
Image Source: Bungie
There are other bugs as well. For instance, this reviewer encountered a problem where, in the first story mission of the campaign, a shield did not lower around a key object, forcing a restart that thankfully began from a checkpoint shortly before the glitch. The game also crashed at least twice, an extreme rarity for Destiny 2 before this expansion. These various technical problems point to the need for there to have been more QA put into the expansion before launch. Sadly, Bungie apparently laid off most of their QA team in their recent rounds of lay-offs, so it seems unlikely that this course will change in future expansions.
Verdict
The Edge of Fate is an amazing story experience that is held back from higher levels of success by some issues with the gameplay and larger issues with the game’s sound. Patches will surely fix some of these problems and make future replays of campaign missions and general exploration more acceptable, but we still have to rate the expansion as it is today. Despite that, the heights and set-up in preparation for content coming in the second half of this year are substantial, and dampen the impact of flaws by factors outside of the narrative team’s control.
Rating: 7.5/10
Written By: Harrison Edgar
Developer: Bungie; Publisher: Bungie; Players: Harrison Edgar; Released: July 15th, 2025; ESRB: T; MSRP: [$39.99]
Review played on PS5
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