Destiny 2’s New ‘Episode’ Format Seems Like Bonus Timegating, For Now

We are in the middle of week 2 of Destiny 2’s new “episode” format, heading toward week 3. And so far, I have seen…almost nothing that differentiates it from the seasonal model. There was an extra cutscene at the start, but that may have been more Final Shape-related, but elsewhere? Everything seems identical.

Well, actually, looking ahead it seems like it’s mainly doubling down on seasonal timegating. Some fans hoped this would do the opposite, shedding the week-to-week nature of missions and the story in favor of three “Acts” you could play at your leisure. That’s not how it works. It’s the same weekly cadence as before, as in you do 4-5 steps in the seasonal story to inch it forward, then wait.

And now there are new means of timegating, other than just storytelling. We have:

• More weapons being added to current episode pools that will not unlock until future acts.
• A timegated battle pass with rewards that cannot be earned until other Acts begin.
• The above includes things like the Red Death catalyst being timegated for a future battle pass stage that cannot be earned for weeks.
• New artifact perks unlocked which will go above and beyond current ones but again, it’s something you have to wait for rather than the artifact being more fun up front.

I get it, it’s a fine line between keeping players engaged and not letting them be over-frustrated by a ready-set-wait story or locked items. And even outside of the timegating, I just think players were hoping for more of a shakeup to seasons than what just appears to be a…longer seasons. Same format, same HELM home base, same all of it.

We could all be proven wrong here and the concept may evolve both over the course of this current Echoes episode, but also in the future. Specifically, we have to remember Echoes is something developed fully alongside The Final Shape were 95% of resources were going, so it stands to reason the second two episodes may be larger and more significantly different. They sound that way, at least, plus I think I’ll be more engaged with a non-Vex-based story, given what I’m seeing from this so far.

Like it’s…fine, I’ll keep playing, because I’m me. But I do think fans were hoping for something more different and less relying on continued, or even increased, timegating than what we’ve seen so far.

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