Destiny 2 players are toasting the new ‘Starter Pack’

The hardest thing Destiny 2 He is Get any of your friends to play it. Fans of Bungie’s ambitious and iconic sci-fi game have long been hoping for a simple ramp that would make it easier to bring lapsed players and newcomers back into its world. Destiny 2The new Starter Pack might look just like that. Instead, it’s an expensive collection of random items that fans can’t stop diving into.

Season of Desires aired today With an exciting trailer and new quests revolving around collecting dragon eggs to defeat an ancient enemy. But players have also noticed a new DLC add-on on PSN, Xbox, and Steam that has been rolled out alongside the latest update. called Destiny 2 Starter pack, costs $15, and is one of the most ridiculous microtransactions I’ve seen. Contrary to what its name might suggest, the Starter Pack does not include any expansions, missions, or story content. It’s just a random collection of things meant to “augment” players’ arsenals. Here’s what’s included:

• The chosen traveler
• Destroyed doll
• Sleeper simulator
• Strange ship
• The strange bird
• Strange ghost shell
• 125,000 rays
• 50 boost cores
• 5 reinforcement posts
• 1 rising straggler

These first three items are all ancient exotic weapons that have been in the game since 2019 or earlier. They’re mostly good but only synergize with specific builds and can all be obtained from a tower kiosk without much fuss. The ship, bird, and ghost shell are purely cosmetic and depend entirely on personal taste. In my opinion at least, the ones in the starter pack are a far cry from some of the game’s best designs.

At the same time, the materials are very stingy. Glimmer is Destiny 2The main in-game currency, which is earned by doing anything and everything. Cores, prisms, and ascendant shards (what players affectionately call “golf balls”) are for concentrating engrams, recycling equipment, and crafting new items, none of which are particularly useful to new players, and are pretty meaningless in the quantities provided. It’s not even enough to A complete masterpiece New piece of armor. It’s a strange set of equipment that can be purchased for more than the cost of an entire season of the game.

“I’d like to say this is pay to win, but it’s really just a waste of money,” one player wrote. On the Saucepan com.subreddit. “Pay to lose.” Another wrote: “This is pathetic. 3 mediocre exotics, some crappy cosmetics and some materials aren’t worth that much. The real starter pack would be outdated weapons and DLC.”

There are three big obstacles to players returning Destiny 2. The first is that most of the story is no longer in the game due to stored content. The second is that Destiny 2New Light’s campaign remains very abstract and offers no real direction to end-game activities. The third is that despite being ostensibly a free-to-play game, all of the expansions are paid and unlocking access to everything is still very expensive. Save the shadow, a disappointing 2019 expansion, is still typically $25. The Starter Pack adds even more hype, confusing players with misleading descriptions like “flying between destinations in your new alien ship.” Narrator’s Voice: The alien ships are just a custom loading screen animation.

The starter pack also comes in the context of layoffs at Bungie amid the delay 2024 the final form expansion And Reported lack of revenue. At a time when the studio seems desperate for money, the $15 package only underscores the gap between players and those leading the game. Destiny 2Monetization strategy. It’s one thing for milk whales, but as… Destiny 2 As players point out, the new starter pack seems to be aimed squarely at taking advantage of new players who wouldn’t know any better. As one of them put it: “These are some dirty mobile games.”