As Destiny 2’s Echoes Act 1 Abruptly Ends, Episodes Seem To Be Worse Than Seasons

Destiny 2 players logged in for a new story mission in its “Echoes” episode yesterday, and then were promptly informed that…the first Act was over. This was a surprise to many (myself included) who were not aware before this that an Act would end with just three weeks of story development, before taking a three week break, then presumably three weeks on and off until we get through the whole thing.

Yes, that’s a change from the seasonal model but this seems like it’s going to be…worse. Having just three weeks of story before taking a three week break reminds me of how Netflix is splitting its new seasons of big shows in half or thirds with a month break in between, and it really breaks the flow of things.

Past that, if this is the schedule, it may mean 9 weeks of story content, which may be more than the 7-8 a season usually has, but again, these Episodes are much longer than seasons, as Act 3 doesn’t even begin until August 27. Act 2 will continue July 16.

But it’s not just the story stopping and starting, it’s also about what the game is now timegating that it wasn’t before. Namely, the game will introduce new weapons to join the current seasonal selection with those next two Acts, given players little reason to play seasonal content currently, even if they wanted to, with those rewards held back. We have not seen weapons timegated in this fashion…ever, and it really does not feel good to have this be the plan for the episodic model, even if it will indeed be more overall weapons than usual.

The second main issue is the battle pass, which is also now timegated. You can get to level 100 now, which is where I am as of this week, but after that, it now takes dramatically more experience to level up, and even if you do so, you cannot claim any rewards until Act 2 starts. That will unlock 50 more levels, then 50 more for Act 3. The result of this means there is no points claiming challenges or completing bounties until Act 2 launches, lest the experience count for only a fraction of what it’s supposed to.

I know why Bungie is doing this, as if you just had everything up front that would result in even longer dead time at the end of an episode than we had with seasons, given how long they are, but this doesn’t feel good either, and feels worse than the seasonal mode. The promise was that episodes would be bigger than seasons, and while that’s probably true, given that there are less, I’d be amazed if it was more content total than 4 seasons had. To me, this feels like a way to scale back on content delivery to some degree, and the extra timegating is the main thing that makes it all feel worse.

There may be big surprises coming in Act 2 and 3, and perhaps more content that we’re envisioning, but so far, this change does not seem like a good one and “mixing up” the format of seasons seems like it’s very similar to what it was before, but with more timegating, which is one of the main things people grew to dislike about seasons in the first place.

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