Talk about bad timing.
Amid much controversy, developer Bungie came under a firestorm of criticism weeks before the much anticipated launch of it’s first DLC for Destiny 2, Curse of Osiris. Without boring you with details, Bungie (Halo, Halo 2, Halo 3, you get the idea) essentially was outed for some shady practices and throttling down XP gain. It boiled down to losing the trust of its player base as these practices made players feel as if they were being steered to the ever growing phenomena in the gaming industry: the dreaded micro transactions. The blowback of ThrottleGate even caused Bungie to cancel their live stream of the next installment of the franchise — in favor of a statement that essentially said, “uh, yeah…sorry?”
This didn’t sit well with the community, a community that stuck around through the thick and thin of Destiny 1 (D1 or Destiny Vanilla), through empty promises and endless grind multiplied by endless let down, with the occasional golden carrot dangled to keep players coming back for more. “It’ll get better!” we were promised, (and I, being a major D1/Bungie apologist was among those reassuring fans to “just wait, they’ll fix it”.) Now that all that ugly business is out in the open- we can address why we are here- the actual content of Curse of Osiris.
I’ll start out by saying my expectations weren’t exactly high–and I was right. The story is on par with the campaign from the main game; nothing groundbreaking, nothing very jaw dropping, and a little underwhelming. That said, there’s nothing wrong with the DLC; it’s pleasantly entertaining, albeit a little mundane. The new area/hub world is incredibly small, but Bungie’s done some pretty creative things here, as despite its lacks in size, there’s plenty to do. Mercury is a very busy area with all sorts of activities to partake in, activities that you’ll need to do in order to get the loot (trust me when i say, the grind for the exclusive Forge gear is a doozy, but absolutely worth it — these weapons are awesome).
I found the length of the DLC’s story to be very short. Osiris was completed in about 3.5 hours, even when I took my time to search for every nook and hidden gem that Bungie is famous for — a good thing for geeks grinding three different characters; oherwise, having to slog through a long campaign would get very tiresome.
While that may deem a little underwhelming and not all that epic, the story is concise and to the point, without a whole lot of useless wandering about. We get some lore, we meet Osiris finally, and in the end this story kind of wraps up in a neat little bow. In the same vein of Rise of Iron, this could have very easily have just been in the main game as a side quest, but alas, this is what we can expect from Destiny. Face it fans–this is life now.
As with all Destiny content so far, I like Curse of Osiris. It’s fun. It’s a very enjoyable shooter experience, with excellent aesthetics — a welcome and fitting addition to the Destiny lore I’d have no problem following along in novel format.
Shady practices aside (arguably not Bungie’s fault; blame Activision), Curse is worth it, as the sequel’s first DLC pack answers questions, raises one or two more, yet–in the end–holds up. If you have the expansion pass already, give it a shot; there’s plenty of content to keep you busy once the main quest is done. If you’re on the fence about picking Osiris up, get it, as it will optimize your Destiny experience, and if you’re one of those who is done with Activision, done with Bungie, and done with Destiny, then we dont have anything really to talk about do we? 3.75/5 Bibles.
-Danny Witt