Destiny 2 The Witch Queen is bewildering for a new player

"It’s a Friday. The Friday after Witch Queen releases, in fact, and I’ve gathered what might be known as ‘The Boys’ – a trio of friends that play games together less and less as the years go on, mainly because of things like commitments and responsibilities. They’ve promised to chaperone me through Destiny 2’s new Witch Queen content because I am a complete novice.

I was made aware that Destiny 2 isn’t particularly friendly to new players, but some quick messages back and forth beforehand made the plan clear: hop into the game, create a character, do a bit of tutorial, and then we’ll yeet straight into the Witch Queen expansion. How naive we were."

[--Onilink--]

I cant even begin to imagine the new player experience on Destiny right now, to the point that I dont even understand the point of the F2P version (other than making it easier for cheaters)

As well as the campaign is for Witch, almost every decision Bungie has made as the years go by has caused more and more alienation of possible new players, starting with vaulting content.

Even a lapsed player from 2 years ago would really struggle to get back in it

[rippermcrip]

I played D1 and the first two expansions. Then stopped. Didn't get D2.

But then it became free, so I gave it a try. Ya, I was indeed like completely overwhelmed. Don't think I have it more than 2 days before I gave up on it.

[Taero]

Hah, I bought D2 along with the forsaken expansion, jumped in and got through a confusing as shit tutorial where some random person ended up in a crystal, got punted to the overworld and told "have at it, here are a bunch of currencies, your old D1 character but random items are gone and others are in your mail, here are a bunch of NPC's...who are they? What does everyone do? Where is the next logical progression since you haven't followed obsessively since we launched? Eeeeeh, figure it out"

It's an objectively badly designed experience for players who have not continuously played and kept up with it, this is even before you get in to the vaulting of earlier quests, dungeons, plot lines etc.

What really blows my mind is that while I get they need to manage the insanely ballooning file size (especially for consoles) basically no effort seems to have been put in at replacing that content with anything that explains what the fuck is going on.

[--Onilink--]

Even the whole thing about file sizes is just an excuse for their outdated engine (and their unwillingness to replace/improve it). They could easily have people choose which expansions/locations they want to install and let them decide how big the file size is, like CoD does with all its modes

[PapaBop]

It's equally as bewildering for returning players too, Not played since Forsaken and felt completely lost, puts me in a mission where Knights can one shot my shield. Sounds like Bungie did great with the expansion but for me, that ship sailed. If they are committed to Destiny, they need a fresh start with Destiny 3 and get it right the first time and not the complete dumpster garbage that was D2 at launch.

[Taero]

Yep I'm right there with you, thought I'd jump back in as it was on sale, bought D2 and forsaken, heard they were going to soon vault forsaken, didn't know wtf was going on, where to go, what was next, got bored, uninstalled all in about 2 hours.

[Germaximus]

The game is sloppy af. It's fun, but deeply sloppy. That's the main reason I take real LONG breaks between playing. Also the fact that they force you to pay the same price for the same game every single year.