It’s a strange time for fate 2 now. The game starts from a surprise victory lap with The final form. The final expansion culminates the game ten years of history and lead our beloved cast of Guardians on new journeys that will be explored in “episodes” rather than the seasons that fate 2 the players are used to it. Additionally, Bungie seems to have promised more significant changes than they’ve actually delivered, and fans are quick to notice.
Last year, Bungie announced that it would be moving away from fate 2seasonal pattern. As it stands, every three months Bungie launches a new season of content, including new storylines, activities, and new gear. Narrative moments are delivered piecemeal through weekly missions, radio chatter, and the occasional rousing conclusion, but for the most part, seasons boil down to the same repetition of events with different dialogue. Sometimes there wouldn’t even be any new story content for weeks, leaving players wondering when the narrative would pick up.
For comparison, fate 2The first episode of Echoes wrapped up its first of three acts this week, and fans aren’t too thrilled with what they got. Most of Echoes’ content right now is a few repetitive activities, some new gear themed after the Vex enemy faction (which seems to be the focus right now), and the occasional cutscene or bit of dialogue. Now that the act is over, there’s nothing to do but wait until the next one unlocks in a few weeks, which means there’s now a built-in blackout period due to a time limit. Sound familiar?
Suffice it to say, seasons in fate 2 they were often tiring, mind-numbing, and sometimes confusing to keep up with, and to make matters worse, any feature or mechanic introduced to them was ripped from the game once a new expansion launched. This approach has long been in need of a change, and the new episodes were meant to be. We’re off to a bad start, if that’s the case, because things look generally the same as ever, if not a little worse.
Fate players spent the last few weeks expressing these very feelings and hopefully the best is yet to come. One post on the official Fate The subreddit called the structure of the first episode “disappointing so far”, suggesting that “Echoes so far is just an extended seasonal pattern with more time constraints”. Another called the episodes “worse content than the seasons”. The assumption some are working with is that since Echoes has finished releasing a new expansion, it’s also starting slowly so as not to overwhelm players. If that happens to be the case, there’s now a lot of pressure on the rest of the episode to generate some excitement.
Part of the problem is that Bungie never spelled out exactly what the difference would be here. While the studio touted the episodes as a big change that would change the way it delivers content, it never broke down the model beyond a rough roadmap. Players understand that the next three episodes The final form they will be more standalone storiesand not the connecting seasonal narratives that fans are used to, but what they really wanted to know was what to expect and when to expect it.
Instead, Bungie waited forever to follow up, and even when detailing the themes of the episodes, they still offered little in the way of a breakdown in terms of what players should expect to do. Offering little in the way of communication – a problem Bungie has continually faced and then corrected – expectations were allowed to build, and now many are disappointed to see themselves seemingly getting even shorter bursts of content in their favorite current game. And now, instead of enjoying their time with fate 2there is the whole community is wondering what’s going on in your near future.
