For new or returning players, Destiny 2 can feel like a disjointed mess of systems that aren’t explained, enemies with vague motivations, and stories that seem to have no logical connection to one another. This air of confusion extends to Bungie’s new 30th Anniversary Pack for Destiny 2, which is being pitched as a celebration of Bungie as a company being around since 1991.
Available on XBox, PC and Playstation, (we played the PC release), the Steam store page for it says the following: “Celebrate Bungie’s 30th Anniversary with a new dungeon, the Gjallarhorn Exotic Rocket Launcher, Thorn armor set, and an arsenal of weapons, gear, and cosmetics inspired by Bungie’s past.” And after playing this for nearly two weeks, I can sum the experience up as: I paid nothing for this, and I still feel like it’s a rip-off.
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The issues with it begin right on the store page. Bungie asks customers to pay £22.99, but won’t tell you exactly what is it you’re buying. It buys you the pack, yes, sure, but what’s IN the pack? Exactly what “weapons, gear and cosmetics” do I get? What am I actually buying, Bungie? Bungie seems strangely tight-lipped about it, to where Steam discussions and Reddit threads are filled with people asking the same question: What’s actually in the 30th Anniversary Pack?
The answer is mostly grind. Lots of grind. Because that’s what doubles for fun these days. Almost all the anniversary cosmetics are locked behind the “Dares of Eternity” dungeon, a six person experience that must be played to both complete bounties to unlock the Halo Magnum pistol, but also to gather “treasure keys” which can then unlock chests that drop cosmetic items. It’s a fun enough time, but after over half a dozen runs it was already growing repetitive.
Each class does also get one free armour set to celebrate the Anniversary, which is nice. No grinding required to unlock it, though your mileage will vary on whether you like them. Personally, I’m not a massive fan of the neon-graffiti styled Hunter one, though the Warlock one is kind of alien and cool.
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The issue with the rest, though, is that your rewards are mostly RNG based, meaning they’re random. The other anniversary rewards in this game are all locked inside an in-game lootbox and, in my particular playthrough, I found duplicate items a big problem. My inventory was filled with the same battle rifles, shotguns, trace rifles and swords, with virtually nothing else ever dropping during my time playing (I saw a grenade launcher once). The issue there is that, for all I know, I’ve already unlocked everything there is, that this is the complete set of Halo themed weapons, but I have no way of knowing for sure. Bungie doesn’t appear to have published a list of drops for you to check against to know if your collection is complete or not.
The other cosmetic chests require multiple treasure keys and different event ranks to open, but at least they’re not randomised. Opening these chests will grant a specific cosmetic item for that class, one which is unlocked account wide. To unlock everything for one class you will need to be rank 16, and have 23 treasure keys, meaning if you want to unlock all the sets for all three classes, you will need 69 keys, and that’s not including the 5 keys you need for the sparrow, the 7 keys for the ship, and the keys needed for weapon mods (1 each time), ghost shells (3 each time), and the anniversary weapons (1 each time).
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The long and short of this is that to unlock everything, you’re going to become INTIMATELY familiar with every single square inch of the Dares of Eternity though anyone who plays Destiny 2 regularly is likely already familiar with the grind needed to accomplish much of anything. The most frustrating thing about the entire anniversary experience is that it’s never entirely clear what is on offer or how you can best get it. It also fails to mention one key fact that is, well, kind of important for anyone thinking about buying this.
The anniversary dungeon has a power level requirement of 1310. Any new or returning player will start at 1100, leaving a 200 level gap. Normal drops are capped at level 1270, which still isn’t a high enough level, so you’ll need to grind the weekly bounties and just hope they drop what you need. In a week and a half of grinding every evening after work, I only managed to get to 1275, which is still not high enough level, and that was with enlisting the help of a high level friend to clear content more quickly. Nowhere is it mentioned that this content is pitched at high level players only. Not on the store page, or in the marketing material.
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The question then is, if you are a new or returning player, is this worth your time and money? I guess it’s one way to grind for levels and loot while also unlocking the cosmetics along the way, but it presupposes you’re happy to run Dares of Eternity around a hundred times to unlock everything (depending on your luck with RNG), as well as requiring you to grind out weekly bounties to get the higher level gear you’ll still need to collect for the anniversary dungeon.
Sold without making it clear what’s in it, how you unlock it, or that it’s really geared towards high level players, it’s difficult to recommend this to anyone who isn’t already heavily invested in Destiny 2, and even if you are a long time player, it’s just… still more grinding. Personally, I’d save my £22 and put it towards a new game instead.
Destiny 2 – Bungie 30th Anniversary Pack is available now on XBox, PC and Playstation.
