[b]Beyond Light[/b] Beyond Light is tricky. I LOVE the setting and theme and design. And the whole Clovis Bray side of the story and lore was amazing. The Deep Stone Crypt was cool as hell. And we got Elsie's backstory!!! So the "minor" stuff in Beyond Light was amazing. Eramis as the main campaign villain was... meh. I get it, she's angry that the Fallen have well... "fallen" so much from their great past. Scavengers worshiping a maimed god that abandoned them in their time of need, and bowing to ruthless dictators that starve them into submission. In theory, her story has some interesting points. But the delivery of her story was very "meh". We fought larger-than-average Fallen captain that can shoot ice at us. [b]Which Queen[/b] Witch Queen's main story was a lot more compelling. Even though it matched up to what some of us theorized for years (that the Traveler doesn't necessarily care about benevolence when picking Risen), it threw the faith of the entire secondary cast for a loop. It shattered their belief system. And Savathun was a better antagonist, in dialog + scenes + combat. There were personal stakes here: she was screwing with us for multiple seasons in one way or another. She took Osiris away from us and (more importantly) Saint 14. She turned our own powers against us. Prior to this, most of all of the ghosts we encountered were friendly and almost naïve, and now they're helping our enemies kill us. Witch Queen's main story was leagues ahead of Beyond Light. But I still really liked Beyond Light's background stuff (Clovis, Elsie, etc) [b]Seasons[/b] Meh. I get it, they're small and such so we aren't getting anything close to A-grade stories for the most part. Mostly just interesting stuff here and there. A) The whole "let's try to free Savathun so she helps us and so Mara can kill her" was cool. B) Crow's dilemma was interesting. First trying to remember who he was, and then trying to deal with the guilt he feels over who he was. C) Zavala actually got interesting back-story. I mean... damn. And it was actually sad. D) I'm kind of digging the new Fallen kid this season, a fresh change of pace from Spider and Missraks. E) Saint 14 realizing he was monstrous all those years ago, and trying to come to terms to it. Cool. But I've never been a major fan of the Seasons.

I frankly don't care anymore. But now you've asked, I think I know why I finally disengaged and started shrugging at the new storylines. A small thing indicates why I stopped caring: The broken Tower. It's been many seasons since it got damaged in the Red War and yet it is still a wreck under repair. The problem with this game is that despite the Guardians and the Vanguard and all the power of the Light, nothing is getting rebuilt. The Guardians and the City have no agency. They react, but don't rebuild or take the initiative. As the seasons progressed, I wanted to see Humanity start to win back and occupy all those old fallen and wrecked cities and colonies across the Solar System. It looked like that might happen for a while. In the Red War, the Vanguard went back to Titan and restarted the power on the old colony, and started taking the fight to the occupying Hive. On IO, the planet was being explored by Asher Mir, and the enemies there were being pushed back. On the other planets, the Vanguard was active and fighting on many fronts. And then poof! It was all gone again. Half the planets were removed for...reasons. So it was back to the City that never gets rebuilt, not the Tower, not the giant holes in the ground from bombs dropped in the Red War. Spinning our wheels, with even the new alliances with the Cabal and such barely making a dent in things. The old ruins remain ruins, and Humanity is still just hanging on with never any real progress after all this time. And it just got tiresome. Plus there were other problems. Old enemies are never vanquished, they just come back in a different form. Then we find out the 'big bad' that has been orchestrating events was all along being manipulated by something worse...until we find out there's still another behind that one. Does anyone seriously think The Witness will be the final boss? Doubtful, so it's hard to get too worked up about its threatening approach. Hey, buddy, join the pile of dead enemies - at least temporarily, that is. Don't worry, you'll be back somehow one day. To me, the story is now just an excuse to frame the season's events and missions, to add some flavor, like adding a bit of hot sauce to a dish. But the main dish is the gameplay, the joy of fighting waves of enemies with guns and space magic. The why barely matters anymore as long as I get cool guns and armor, there are interesting or fun(ish) events, and PvP, Gambit, etc, aren't too broken. That's enough for me.

My only issue is the lack of *Tower Evolution* The Rasputin craters don't count . It doesn't ever feel like it improves, no leftovers from prior seasons , the vex gate, the sundial , etc . We need to have more decorations added an left from events . Misc lights from The Dawning, a plastic pumpkin, the pad from the sundial , even a sconce from Iron Banana, just make it feel LIVED in. Cause as far as I can tell me must use the old (an bette) Tower as storage

This is a bit of a soapbox of mine - I've said before that I was a person who used to insist constantly to any nerd who would listen that games need storyline. They'd insist people only want to shoot things in the face - sure, but even that can get repetitive. I banged on and on about storylines and making games immersive. I thought I was shouting into the void. I had no idea anyone was listening. I'm glad to see it. The storytelling itself - well, I admit I'm a problematic writer. I can predict a tv's plot within the first five minutes of watching, because writing generally gets really predictable. Every tv show, movie franchise, and so on starts to sound like a cringey soap opera, and the story now is going that route, because it just seems to...happen. I'm ok with it, because I know that's generally how things tend to go. But I still cheered loudly when I saw a person has been assigned to essentially be responsible for Destiny storyline. That would be my dream job right there, and 20 years ago, the idea such a job would even exist, or was needed, was something I couldn't convince anyone about for love or craft. I'm glad things have changed a lot in that regard. Things will evolve with all the usual issues - old school hating new directions, ruining-of-childhood claims will abound, when fans lurch into toxic and take it out on the creators, ugh.... it won't be rosy. But man, am I glad someone listened, and started creating the type of thing I honestly thought I'd never see, because it didn't exist when I eventually gave up on the industry. Flawed or not, it makes me smile to see it now.

The traveler is not benevolent. It does not care about us specifically. It only seeks to prevent the final shape and continue its existence. It has used us to fight its war. The reason the hive got the light is because it believed savathun was its best chance at survival. We doomed the traveler by slaying savathun.

I’m really happy they’re focusing on expanding the story, building up characters, and keeping the continuity. My only gripe is that I hate waiting one week every week for more story content I feel as if it’s completely unnecessary and the gameplay loop is getting really boring (get umbral engram focus it at vendor, upgrade vendor by doing seasonal activity for better rewards, rinse and repeat)

Interesting is the word I would use. Considering the rocky road the story has taken over the years, seeing it return to the og storylines roots is nice. I’ve long known the events of the Collapse would be a source of major revelations. That’s been delivered on and it keeps on rolling in. The Darkness side of things has been handled well enough in general. The new direction with the powers seems inconsistent but likely due to changes in the story. So while I dislike inconsistency on principle, if the end result is something of quality, I can accept it. Lookin forward to future developments.