Future 2 has all the time confronted fluctuating opinions from its most passionate followers. Now, beneath seven months after the launch of its critically acclaimed and well-liked DLC, The Closing Form, it’s contending with some critically regarding participant counts and overwhelming content material drops, resulting in an all-time low for the neighborhood’s morale.
I do know what you’re pondering. Aren’t you the lady who stated Future 2 isn’t the issue, its gamers are? Properly, you’re not mistaken, however I don’t remorse the factors I made in that article. Once I wrote it in July 2023, the Gentle and Darkish saga was hurtling in direction of an thrilling conclusion, and Bungie was rolling out extra contemporary and thrilling content material for its FPS recreation than I knew what to do with. The arguments in opposition to its monetization system had been justified, however that was by no means one thing gamers had been compelled to interact with.
Regardless of a difficult 2023, the narrative appeared set to vary with the launch of The Closing Form in June 2024, which catapulted participant counts again as much as north of 300k concurrents. Nonetheless, it’s been in sharp, painful decline ever since, dropping to a peak of 34k concurrents in December 2024. The discourse across the recreation’s future is pretty pessimistic on-line, but nobody can pin down why curiosity is at an all-time low, or how Bungie can reclaim its previous glories. One factor you hear quite a bit is that Future 2 wants extra “meaningful” content material – however what does that seem like?
For me, the quantity of recent content material isn’t the problem. Because the introduction of the seasonal reworks and episodes, Bungie has added new three-player actions, timed actions, reworked Battlegrounds, added two new Unique missions, a dungeon, distinctive story missions, and extra dialogue and cutscenes to flesh out the narrative. It even introduced again the Jail of Elders from the unique Future, which many had wished for a very long time.
As somebody who brazenly and unashamedly admits Future 2 is my favourite recreation, I believe The Closing Form felt an excessive amount of like a definitive ending on reflection. I don’t know what’s taking place within the new story; I’m disinterested and disengaged from the narrative for the primary time in years. I had adopted the story of the Crimson Warfare, the Witness, and the Guardian’s perilous adventures, however once we toppled the massive unhealthy, it felt like the last word fruits of my laborious work.
I haven’t had respiratory area to gather my ideas and get the itch to begin a contemporary chapter. In a 12 months plagued with devastating layoffs and difficult participant opinion, taking a hiatus after The Closing Form might need been one of the best factor Bungie might have achieved for the franchise. Financially viable for the studio? In all probability not, however the limitless glut of recent Future 2 content material hasn’t given us any time to overlook it. It’s simply straight again into the grind for higher loot, solely now with a narrative we’re not as invested in.
For me, an enormous rework and reset is required. Subclass reworks, armor, and unique weapon reworks, in addition to wanting on the loot tables from every of the sport’s actions. It isn’t sufficient to place a reasonably reskin on a gun, give it a unique title, and declare it a brand new weapon. The rewards must justify the grind.
The sport’s PvP mode has had fixed tuning and changes, together with long-awaited new maps, however the endgame PvP has been largely uncared for. Gambit as a mode is simply… there. As gamers, we’re anticipated to deal with it like one of many three major ritual actions, but when Bungie doesn’t care about it, why ought to we?
One of many highlights of the previous twelve months was the Pantheon, a boss rush mode that tasked fireteams with taking over a number of raid bosses for uncommon loot and achievements. However, sadly, it not exists, having been a brief mode to fill time within the lead-up to The Closing Form’s launch. I’d like to see it make a comeback.
Whereas this might be a wildly unpopular opinion, I additionally need the facility grind to return. I felt much more incentivized to log in to Future 2 once I knew I wanted to hunt out pinnacle rewards to degree up my gear and enhance my Gentle degree earlier than taking over endgame content material. If I wasn’t robust sufficient on day certainly one of a brand new raid, my fireteam would go on with out me. As somebody with cripplingly unmedicated ADHD, that type of time strain is the one method to get me glued to my keyboard, headset on, grinding for the objects I would like. The removing of the facility degree grind means I can log in at any time and be as robust as nearly everybody else – boring.
Do I believe Bungie must take Future 2 offline, go into quiet improvement mode, and ultimately launch Future 3? No. In any case, the studio is working laborious on Codename Frontiers and its two expansions. Frontiers will launch in mid-2025 and is the umbrella time period for Apollo and Behemoth. Frontiers guarantees new tales, places, missions, weapons, gear, raids, and dungeons. The episodic supply in every growth will deliver new and reprised actions, gear and mods, challenges, modifiers, occasions, and a contemporary meta.
Most fascinating to me, although, is that Apollo will observe a narrative over “dozens of threads” that may be explored in a non-linear style. In principle, this implies I can select my very own journey at my very own tempo, however in apply I’m unsure if it’s sufficient to win over the disinterested ex-Future gamers looking for a purpose to return.
In brief: I don’t suppose there’s a straightforward method to clear up the dwindling participant counts and get folks enthusiastic about Future once more. I can solely communicate for myself. What I do know is that the conclusion of The Closing Form was one of the best time I’ve had in Future 2 in years. The 12-player exercise, the thrill of lastly confronting the area recreation‘s most terrifying enemy, and the adrenaline of the storyline coming together almost perfectly. If Bungie can get me that hyped again, I’m all in.
