Destiny 2: Shadowkeep’s greatest strength is what’s kept Destiny so popular all these years: the gameplay. The blend of shooting and looting remains as addictive and satisfying as ever, even if we’re still firing at the same enemies we’ve been fighting since 2014. Bungie has done a solid job altering and perfecting the formula over the years and Shadowkeep represents the next big step in its refinement, Armor 2.0.

Crucible remains mostly intact outside of quality-of-life improvements. Bringing the player count back up to 6v6 was the right move and the lower time-to-kill vastly improves the experience. The significant multiplayer addition in Forsaken lies with Gambit, a new mode that blends PvE and PvP elements. The 4v4 mode tasks players with killing AI-controlled enemies and collecting and banking motes of light. After accumulating 75 motes, a Primeval enemy appears and the first team to defeat their Primeval wins. Of course, it’s not that simple thanks to the PvP elements. Players can spend motes to summon Blockers on the enemy’s map. Collect enough motes and a player can invade the enemy’s map for a short period.

Microtransactions were a considerable problem in Destiny 2 Exotics 2 with end-game items like Sparrows, ships and shaders tied to the game’s version of Loot Boxes. While not as invasive in Destiny 2: Forsaken, it still feels like large amounts of items are held hostage behind the system. Ships, Sparrows, weapon ornaments and shaders are found in the wild, but many remain tied to Eververse. Considering Destiny 2′s costs add upwards of $140 at this point, it’s annoying that the microtransactions remain (the abysmal Curse of Osiris and Warmind DLCs are required to play Forsaken).

If there’s one problem with the Dreaming City, it’s the Blind Well. Working like the Court of Oryx and Archon Forge, players make sacrifices to draw out powerful enemies and, hopefully, earn powerful rewards. As in The Taken King, it’s an excellent idea for a mode that’s unfortunately executed poorly. As Fireteams can only hold three players outside of Crucible and Raids, who else you’ll get, if anyone else, is up to chance. It’s possible six other players with high-level gear will show up. It’s also possible for under-leveled players to hop in or even no extra players at all. The problem started with The Taken King and it’s disappointing Bungie hasn’t addressed all these years later.

This boss is an abstract foe, as it is a purple orb with an alien-tech cell wall. However, gamers should be wary of the difficulty of this strike that takes place on the Titan. Additionally, the hordes of enemies and the hungering ogres during this escapade add to a gamer’s strugg

Let’s not mince words here, the Destiny community was in this exact situation three years ago in the months leading up the release of The Taken King. It was to be sold for a price of $40 and required the installation of all previous DLC, even though House of Wolves did not require the Dark Below. Players at the time were outraged at both the price tag and the need to purchase a DLC that was seemingly only required because Bungie said so. One would think the developer would learn a lesson from this, and they did; it was just the wrong one. We are now approaching the second year of Destiny 2 and Bungie is showing us exactly what they’ve learned: that they can get away with it. Curse of Osiris is almost universally panned as being unworthy of players’ time and money. It isn’t required to play Warmind, offers hardly any mechanical changes and yet Bungie, without offering any explanation, says it will be required for Forsaken all the same. This would be bad enough by itself, but Bungie isn’t content to stop there; no, they’ve decided that they need to milk their players even more than they already are, and they’re going to do it with the “Annual Pass.”

This is an easy one but an important first step. Due to all the change that has come with Forsaken getting one’s bearings on what all has changed with menus and inventory will be the most important. There are now Triumphs to be tracked, Collections to be had and an assortment of other things that are all around different. The Cryptarch can now break down Shaders in quantities of five; all those Shaders going to no use? Head over to Rhaul and he’ll be happy to get rid of them quickly as you can hit a button over and over (took me less than five minutes to get ride of most of my useless Shaders). Players returning might also notice that all of the modifications are null and void. This is due to the entirely revamped modification system, so might as well delete those too. Don’t freak out seeing that light level of certain items has gone down, this is just the modifications being useless and one’s Light Level going up will quickly fix this.

Despite all the regression with the campaign and monetization and the rehashing of older content, Destiny 2 still looks quite good. The Moon is an atmospheric place to visit and traversing the caverns the Hive call home produces a sense of dread that other locations in the Destiny 2 experience can’t provide. Meanwhile, the short visits into the Black Garden are gorgeous thanks to all the colors and lush jungle mixed with Vex machinery. Destiny 2 may be two years old now, but it’s still looking good.