Bungie’s newest Future 2 showcase was an enormous blowout for its upcoming enlargement, The Last Form. Although the studio’s been comparatively mum on the enlargement, which can shut out the ten-year story the studio’s been telling because the 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 most recent subclass, which it’s calling Prismatic. As an alternative of specializing in one factor like earlier Mild and Darkish subclasses have, Prismatic is greatest considered Future 2’s reply to multiclassing. Gamers will now be capable to use features of each archetypes of subclasses concurrently and it appears to be like fucking bonkers, dude. That is the form of factor that gamers have dreamt of, however couldn’t probably be applied as a result of it could throw everything of the sport into chaos (or so some thought). Nicely, Bungie goes ahead with it anyway, and it appears to be like dynamic and chaotic as all hell.
In anecdotes supplied by Bungie employees throughout the showcase, the builds sound completely busted. One member of the group 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 that you could shoot to detonate to wash up. One other mixture consisted of unleashing Strand hatchlings, which perform like a pet that pursues enemies, whereas concurrently throwing out a Stasis turret to successfully turn into a crowd management machine.
When utilizing the Prismatic subclass, gamers will see two gauges above their weapons and talents that characterize each the Mild and Darkish. As you deal harm with Mild or Darkish skills, 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 achieve 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 may also restore gamers’ grenade and melee skills, 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 skills or current weapon perks.
The builders described Prismatic as an “superior subclass the place you may have extra construct crafting choices, extra potential combos, extra fragments than you usually get, extra fragment slots to socket than you’ll usually get,” and it reveals.
The Last Form may also introduce a brand new unique class merchandise that steals the perks from different unique gear and combines them into one super-powerful merchandise. This consists of perks for unique gear that was beforehand class-specific, that means that Titans will be capable to steal skills that have been beforehand unique to Warlocks and vice-versa. The unique perks on the category merchandise will probably 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 skills. One developer acknowledged, “We wish it to really feel a little bit damaged.”
A horrifying new enemy
In final yr’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 massive unhealthy on the heart 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 might suppress participant skills with a screech, and acrobatic “melee bruisers” referred to as Husks. Killing Husks “the fallacious approach” will trigger one thing the group is looking a Geist to come out of them and pursue gamers.
Two different enemy sorts, referred to as Attendants and Weavers, will be capable to use Stasis and Strand skills on the participant, respectively. The Weaver particularly will be capable to pull gamers from throughout the sector, which is one among many firsts among the many new enemy faction. It’s been some time since Future 2 acquired a completely new enemy sort, so it’s actually thrilling to see Bungie go all out on a faction that isn’t some form of reskin of an current one.
All in all, a lot of what Bungie confirmed off at the moment is the form of batshit stuff I’ve wished from the sport for a very long time. It’s also the form of content material you may actually solely make if you’re nearing the end line and wish to throw the whole lot you may on the wall. Future 2 usually 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 at the moment flies within the face of that want for steadiness, nevertheless it additionally appears to be like prefer it’s going to make for an exciting closing chapter earlier than Future 2 strikes into one other section of its life. Paired with the discharge of Into the Mild at the moment, Future 2 is eventually doing the factor it ought to’ve completed a very long time in the past: punching the goddamn throttle and refusing to look again.