After taking many months (mostly) off, playing Halo and Titanfall, I’ve come back and spent a couple of solid days in the game, playing rumble, 3v3 clash, and a bit of guardian games Supremacy. For the most part, the words that come to mind are “stale” and “slog.” The meta is stale. Honestly hard to believe it’s STILL mostly void titans with peacekeepers, dunemarchers, and smgs. Wasn’t that the meta like, a year ago? And it’s still the same? 🙄 Most of my deaths are still to special, abilities, heavy, or super. Primary deaths, while more frequent, still feel comparatively rare, which is really unfortunate in a game in which the fluidity of the gunplay is one of the few indisputable upsides. Where are the maps? Why am I still seeing the exact same maps from 2,3,4 years ago? The one new one I saw, a Vex-themed map, was IMO poorly designed. It didn’t play well and wasn’t fun. Trials is still power gated, and since I just came back to the game and have zero desire to grind light levels 24/7 just to be competitive in a PvP playlist, I’ll be skipping that, too. This strikes me as a really weird decision — you have an abysmally low player count, but you’re going to gatekeep your most renowned PvP playlist? 🤔 Likewise, PvP rewards are (still) lame and uninspired. Most of them get deleted on sight. Still hardly any reason to grind comp, either. Few, if any, cosmetic or gameplay-oriented rewards for what should be one of the premiere playlists in Crucible. Overall the game’s mechanics and features feel stale. Fireteam finder — cool, glad they added an in-game social feature after most players have left the franchise. If I switch between different weapons in a match, I have to switch mods to the element of the new weapon. Like I said, a slog; it’s laborious and slows the game down. I’m left with the same feeling that drove me to take a break in the first place. The bones of the game are fantastic, the weapons and armor and art are innovative and cool, but it seems like PvP is an afterthought, which is a shame. IMO Moist Critical was right, this could be the best PvP shooter on the market, if only the developers gave a f—k about it, and, despite their assertions to the contrary, they don’t. I skipped Shadowkeep, but bought Lightfall and ended up with a serious case of buyer’s remorse. I have zero plans to buy Final Shape, and urge you to consider skipping it, too. Voting with your wallet, while still not super impactful, is the only thing Bungie understands.