Across two games and several expansions, theDestinyfranchise has allowed players to explore several interesting locations across the solar system, butEuropa, the new destination coming to theBeyond LightexpansionforDestiny 2, is set to be rather different from anything else players have seen so far. More than its icy terrain (and the icy Stasis abilities players will find there), the frozen moon of Jupiter will be shaking things up by introducing something new to the game: dynamic weather.
For the most part,Destiny 2’s weather systems don’t really affect gameplay at all, being there largely for aesthetics’ sake. That won’t be the case on Europa, however. In a recent blog post, Bungie revealed that, in addition to the enemies andmissions they will face on Europa, players will also have to contend with intense snowstorms that will make traversing the moon a more daunting prospect.
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While this new dynamic weather system will go towards driving home how hostile an environment Europa is, Bungie assured that it won’t drastically alterDestiny 2’s gameplay. According to Alex Velicky, the Design Lead for the new destination, the developer did consider having blizzards slow players’ movement, alter their grenade paths, and even knock them off their Sparrows, but that proved to be “painfully unfun” and “made doing anything in the game almost impossible.”
As such, the snowstorms inDestiny 2will instead affect how easily players will be able to traverse Europa. The weather inBeyond Lightwill dynamically shift between different phases as players explore, moving from clear skies to darkening fog to raging blizzards in ways that feel natural, as illustrated in the comparison images that Bungie shared. This will result in storms that cut players’ vision and make it trickier to navigate as they struggle to see what’s in front of them.
To that end, Bungie suggested that players are going to have to rely more on weapons with thermal scopes to see through the haze, which suggests thatBeyond Light’s slate of new weaponsmay feature more thermal scopes than usual. Going on, the post detailed how the weather system, while dynamic, will also allow for direct developer control, meaning Bungie likely has certain weather conditions set for specific sections of Europa’s story missions.
Europa and all of the new gameplay content it will introduce sound like a meaty addition to the game. Luckily, players won’t have to worry about all that content hogging space on their hard drives, because Bungie has announced that it will beshrinkingDestiny 2’s file size ahead ofBeyond Light’s launch, though it will come at a pretty unpleasant cost for players.
Destiny 2: Beyond Lightwill launch on November 10 for PC, PS4, Stadia, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X. The PS5 version should be available on November 12.
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