Destiny: Renegades thoughts
Dec. 26th, 2025 12:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
zaliachimera
Destiny 2's latest expansion 'Renegades' came out on December 2nd 2025. It was made in conjunction with LucasArts because... well, just look at that artwork. It is doing a Star Wars.
I admit, I was sceptical. When Renegades was announced, I couldn't help but sideye because Star Wars is not something I am particularly into, and I think that Disney massively fucked up the last movie trilogy and some of the extra movies. I know Andor is meant to be good, but I have not yet seen it.
While Star Wars is obviously part of Destiny's DNA (space wizards!), I am here for Destiny the video game, not Star Wars. And with Ash and Iron, an update which should have been a slam dunk easy win, bringing back an area that everyone has been asking for since D2 came out, being a big... nothing, I cannot say that I was optimistic.
I actually kinda resented Renegades before it launched because it felt like everything was being turned over to leading into the story (and I still miss seasonal storylines Bungie :( ).
My hopes were not high... and in some ways I was right, however...
I have really enjoyed Renegades.
So, the big thing is... I do not think that there is anything in Renegades which could not have been done without the Star Wars aspects. The major things from Star Wars – the cantina, the giant space weapon, the villain – all already have precedent in Destiny. We have the criminal underworld and mob boss in the Tangled Shore and Spider. We had the space weapon in the Almighty in the Red War campaign and in Season of the Worthy, and in Rasputin's Warsats. We already have shadowy groups of cultists using powers of Darkness.
So really the Star Wars parts are not strictly necessary.
This ends up actually being one of the strengths of the expansion. It would have been really easy for the Star Wars to overshadow the Destiny. Where it would have felt tacked on, turning Destiny into a Fortnite situation where pop culture icons are shoved in because they are pop culture icons, but without any thought towards them fitting in with the tone of the game and feeling cohesive.
One example of this would be the Final Fantasy XV X Assassin's Creed crossover event. They were fun, but they were very obviously screaming 'We are doing a crossover and we do not care if it makes sense!'.
But with Destiny, like I said, Star Wars is part of the DNA of the game, and they were smart in what elements they decided to integrate. The Dredgens are a good stand-in for the Sith, the Praxic Order are a good stand-in for the Jedi order, stagnant and unchanging and dogmatic in their hatred for the Darkness, no matter how much our knowledge of the Darkness in the Destiny universe has changed. We already have a criminal underworld so Tharsis Outpost does not feel out of place.
The Campaign
Story outline: New enemy appears with a super weapon that can rip the Light out of Guardians and Ghosts (thus killing them) and their leader, Dredgen Bael is going to aim it at the Last City. Go do crime to stop him!
I think Destiny is in a weird place right now where they have just finished off a 10-year story, and are now having to do setup for the Fate saga. But players' expectations are still based on the last few years of the Light & Darkness saga. People are still expecting big revelations, answers to all the questions. But we're not in the answer phase of a story anymore. We're in the setup. But there is also a decade of history and worldbuilding, so Destiny cannot rely on doing the basic worldbuilding and the sense of mystery of D1 (to be fair, much of the mystery in D1 was because they forgot to put the story into the game for the first few expansions there).
So yeah, Renegades sets up more questions than it answers. It introduces more elements than it resolves. And this is fine. It left me hungry for more and to see where the story is going.
I do think that the campaign at times felt like it could have been fleshed out a bit more - it felt like there was some jumping around and bits that could have done with being filled in with cut scenes or dialogue. The first mission is definitely a spot where it drew on Star Wars: A New Hope's opening - in media res – and you could practically feel the Star Wars text crawl that they couldn't put in the game. Which worked for Star Wars, but I don't feel like it entirely worked here, and meant that we got a lot of info-dump exposition about things later on.
I love Tharsis Outpost. They did a really good job of making Tharsis Outpost feel like a real living place. There are so many people there doing various things, moving from day to day. I thought having the random non-player Guardians there was an excellent choice since we never really get to see other Guardians who aren't major NPCs or other players. I really enjoyed going around and checking out their drip. I loved finding the Ghost building with their theatre! I love Ghost Community Theatre!
It also meant that the cut scene where the villain fires his space weapon that kills them all horrifically was a real gut punch! Gave me chills in the same way as the Witness 'finalising' the Ghost and Guardian in the Lightfall opening fucked me up.
The Syndicates are a lot of fun with their own interesting goals and philosophies. I hope we get more of them. I am glad that we can switch allegiances without damaging reputation or getting guilt-trippy dialogue, and that we can still earn reputation with factions we are not allied to. It is expected that we will want to get max reputation with all three Syndicates to get the upgrades and weapons, so it is set up to allow that with a minimum of fuss.
I also just love the Independent Vex who have decided that what they want to do with their newfound individuality is gamble, do crime, and acquire fashion.
Drifter's Ghost, Blue, was an unexpected delight. I knew we'd been building up to her having an active part, but she is absolutely not what I expected and I adore her. She is loud, opinionated, has a notable Boston accent, and she loves and hates her Guardian so much. She's fantastic and I hope we get a lot more of her.
Another character making the switch from lore-only, to in-game is Praxic Warlock Aunor Mahal. It was great to see her, and she is an interesting character. She is the voice of 'the establishment' in many ways, a Guardian who fights against the Darkness zealously, and is devoted to taking down Dark Guardians. She is kinda a Guardian cop which makes her an interesting balance to the rest of the crew in Renegades who are much more comfortable with going against the Vanguard, using Darkness, being Renegades, basically. But she is also very invested in the safety of the Last City and other Guardians, and she demonstrates that she is willing to change her views based on evidence.
My one real criticism with her would be that I think her change of heart is perhaps a bit too easy and sudden. She has been changing a little bit in the lore over time, but she has still been very dogmatic until Renegades. Having her just go 'oh actually maybe we should embrace using Darkness too! The Praxic Order I have devoted my life to are wrong and need to change!' felt too easy and is something I would have preferred to see devlop over more time.
I feel like the ability to show characters changing over longer periods of time is also a casualty of losing the Seasonal model. Expansions are great, but it means there's less ability to do more incremental changes to characters and the world. For example, we couldn't have got from Eris in Beyond Light to Eris in Renegades if we hadn't had Season of the Witch which Episode Heresy then built on.
I loved that the exotic mission to get the Praxic Blade was incorporated into the main storyline rather than being a post-campaign mission which can feel only tangentially connected to the expansion, even if they give useful information and lore.
I want to call out the exotic mission also for demonstrating how much the Bungie team has improved with lighting the Ascendant Realm. It looks and feels like the Ascendant Realm 100%, and it is very atmospheric, but the lighting means that it is so much easier to see than something like Shattered Throne where the haze means it's hard to see detail including where the edges of platforms are. It's a great change and I would love if Shattered Throne and other Dreaming City Ascendant Realm areas got a makeover like this.
I did think that the final boss fight was a bit... anti-climactic unfortunately. The boss got away so there wasn't the catharsis there. The pike run finale was enjoyable and very cool, but I didn't feel as satisfying as a good final boss fight to end out an expansion. I'm also not fond of a campaign ending on something that relies upon my ability to drive a pike at high speed through obstacles and pits.
But overall, I have really enjoyed the campaign and I am excited to see where the story goes! I am having a great time playing the Lawless Frontier activities and finding secrets there. The Dungeon is a lot of fun and not as frustrating as Vesper's Host was.
The Villain
The main villain of the expansion is Dredgen Bale who is working for/being sometimes possessed by Saturn. The planet. It's... don't worry about it unless you really want to get into Destiny Lore.
First off, Dredgen Bale, I am so sorry for calling you budget Kylo Ren!
You are infinitely more interesting than Kylo, what with actually having an understandable and partially sympathetic motivation beyond... I do not actually know what Kylo wanted.
Dredgen Bael is the son and heir of one of the Last City's weapon foundries. He has harboured a hatred for Guardians and Ghosts and the Light ever since he discovered that his mother had been resurrected by a Ghost and, as with every Guardian, had no memory of her first life or of Bael. He started reading old texts, some of which were banned, got really into Darkness philosophy, decided that the Vanguard were tyrants and that Guardians needed to be destroyed to free humans from their rule.
Which... he is not entirely wrong. The Vanguard are kinda unilaterally in charge of the Last City right now ever since the non-Guardian members of the Consensus (the government council) attempted a coup by checks hand opening a portal to let the Vex (organic network mind of microorganisms in robot bodies whose goal is to convert the entire universe into more Vex) into the Last City where they proceeded to attack people and were only held off by Guardians.
Basically, I agree that the Last City needs a government that respresents everyone, especially the non-Guardian ones. However I vehemently disagree with the destroying all Guardians and tyrant Vanguard parts. Guardians are needed to y'know, keep doing things like saving the universe from existential threats. And the Vanguard also do not want to be in charge of everything in the Last City. Ikora and Zavala are... they are so tired.
But yes, he has an actual interesting motivation. It's a very human motivation too, which is nice after the endgame universe ending threats we've faced.
He is also being used/manipulated by VI. Saturn. The Planet. Who is an asshole. And part of being used means that Bael is in an insane amount of constant pain because his connection with Saturn is turning parts of his body into random elements. Like Tungsten. He is suffering.
I am very interested to see where his character is going to go in future expansions. I am especially interested in what's gonna happen if/when he discovers that the philosophy he's built himself on, that of the Dredgens, was created by Shin Malphur/Dredgen Vale in order to root out Guardians who became too power-hungry for Darkness so that he could kill them before they became a problem. The whole philosophy was a sham, a whole-cloth creation to stop people like him.
The Man with the Golden Gun is not going to be happy.
In fandom terms - Bael is a sopping wet cat of a man who should be put into situations.
The Praxic Blade
They did a bloody fantastic job with the Praxic Blade. It's a lightsaber. I can throw it at enemies and kill enemies with deflected bullets. It even sounds like a lightsaber. And even my 'not that into Star Wars' heart cannot help but love it because it is just fun. It's a great weapon, feels good to use, very cusomisable with catalysts and forms and colours, and is just fun. And again, it does not feel out of place! We have a Warlock super ability where we kill enemies with a flaming sword. We have a sword that lets us teleport short distances. We have swords that hurl energy projectiles. We have a sword that makes other swords generate mini rockets because they gave Ergo Sum Wolfpack rounds.
A lightsaber is honestly tame by Destiny weapon standards.
Other Things
- I appreciate them making it so I can just get the expansion exotic armour from a vendor rather than having to complete the campaign on each class before I can (still haven't got the Titan and Warlock exotics from Edge of Fate because of this).
- They are making some good use of the dialogue boxes so I am hopeful this will continue since it lets us have characters talk without the constraints of needing a voice actor/budget.
- I don't know why, but heat venting a weapon is just not as satisfying as reloading
- I am hoping that the update (Shadows and Order I think?) has a bit more substance than Ash & Iron because ooof I am still sore about Ash & Iron. Taking us back to the Plaguelands, giving us the axe exotic weapon, and somehow not a single mention of the Iron Lords? No lore on the armour or weapons, no real story to speak of... it was a low point when it should have been an easy win.
- I am very happy to have Astral Alignment, Ketchcrash, and Nightmare Containment back in the game! Hopefully this is going to lead slowly to older storylines being put back into the game, especially if they finally drop support for previous generation consoles (D2 runs really poorly and slowly on PS4, I speak from experience).
- I am excited to go poking around Out Of Bounds in the new areas!
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Date: 2025-12-27 03:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-12-27 04:15 pm (UTC)And yeah, the Sequel trilogy had so much potential and just... I think it is madness that Disney who knew they were making a trilogy did not plan out a trilogy, and went for 'filmmaking by committee' because oooof...
Star Wars is just so big and well-known that it really can be overpowering so I am glad they managed to thread the needle and keep it feeling like Destiny. It helps that... for example in the first campaign mission, there is the obligatory trash compactor moment... but that is *fine* because my first thought was not 'Star Wars'. My first thought was about the Presage mission from Destiny itself which had a trash compactor encounter.
So yeah, my most important criteria when I play a game is 'am I having fun?' and it definitely passes on that count!