“You were always my favourite. Never forget that…”

After nearly a decade in the making, the final chapter of the Light and Darkness saga is finally here, bringing with it the closing chapter of one of gaming’s most divisive franchises: Destiny. After arguably what was one of the worst years for Destiny 2 following the subpar Lightfall expansion, the decision to delay TFS until mid-2024 was ultimately a smart one, allowing Bungie the time to cook the expansion to perfection, following the excellent Into the Light update that bridged the gap following the news of the delay. Despite following the longest season on record and having a bit of a rough start over the first couple of days, The Final Shape has launched to near enough universal acclaim from the player base, leaving many reeling for more following the conclusion of the campaign and our final stand against the Witness, leaving many wondering what comes next for the franchise. After releasing on the 4^th June 2024 for all major platforms, I’m going to be covering the time I’ve spent with the PS5 version of the game; detailing the good and deconstructing the bad, whilst ultimately giving you my impressions as to whether the game is worth your time and money at the £41.99 asking price (UK PSN Store).

WARNING: THIS REVIEW CONTAINS HEAVY SPOILERS FOR THE FINAL SHAPE, CARRY ON AT YOUR OWN PERIL.

When the Destiny Beta dropped on PlayStation 4 in July 2014, I was instantly drawn into the world and its atmosphere from minute zero. There was nothing quite like the experience I had with the beta at the time, the game’s environment design and world building struck a chord like nothing before; here was our universe, albeit filled with mystery and secrets that were just begging to be uncovered. Whilst the narrative in the final game was somewhat sub-par, it was Bungie’s environmental storytelling of a much bigger narrative (as well as the controversial Grimoire cards) that solidified my interest in the franchise as a whole; mysteries and stories that would be uncovered over the course of Bungie’s ’10-year plan’ for the franchise. In addition to the narrative, the multiplayer aspect was a standout feature for the game as well; even though online multiplayer was well established by this point (all beef was settled in the map Rust on Modern Warfare 2 back a day) Destiny just hit different, feeling more MMO-like in scale, whilst retaining its looter-shooter identity at its core. My fondest memory of OG Destiny was the first time I ever completed the Vault of Glass raid, meeting people from around the world (LFG was a lot friendlier in those times) and working together through communication and challenges was an exhilarating experience, that solidified my already strong fondness for the franchise as whole, to the point that I’m still here nearly a decade later (through most of the franchises warts and moles to boot).

Destiny 2 was more of a mixed bag upon release, with many holding the state of D1 at it’s end in high regard and dismissing the core changes made to Destiny 2 at launch, leading Bungie down a path of reverting a number of changes (the removal of random rolls was just silly) that would not bring the game back into a favourable state until the release of Forsaken (Destiny 2’s equivalent of The Taken King). The expansions that followed (Shadowkeep and Beyond Light) were both fairly well received, with The Witch Queen being a particular high note for many players, and last year’s expansion: Lightfall falling short somewhat (you can check out my full review here) leading to one of the worst years for Destiny 2 player retention (although the Into The Light update was excellent). With tensions at an all time high between Bungie and the player base, there was a lot riding on The Final Shape to deliver a powerful ending to the saga that delivers on multiple fronts, tying off long-standing lore and story strands that have been brewing since those initial moments in OG Destiny, whilst also holding down content that will keep the player base engaged beyond the narrative conclusion. I’m happy to report that the extra time that Bungie spent cooking paid off, delivering an expansion that is arguably up there with the best of the franchise.

Don’t break my heart, my achy, pale heart:  The Final Shape takes our Guardian inside the heart of the Traveller to face down the Witness, after arguably one long year of staring at the prismatic triangle.

Straight out of the gate The Final Shape throws down its hands right into mixing up the nostalgia, giving those who haven’t played the game in a while (or those simply wanting a refresher) a recap of the major story beats that have taken place over the last 10 years, as well as the story’s culmination point; the being known as the Witness, who seeks to create the final shape of the universe, calcified into eternity in the name of so called “Salvation”.  Following Crow at the end of Season on the Wish, the campaign finds us diving head first into the opening created by the spirit of Riven, right into the pale heart of the traveller, to be greeted by a long-lost ally in the form of Cayde-6 (voiced one again by the excellent Nathan Fillion). The reunion between our Guardian and Cayde-6 is easily one of my favourite moments of the franchise; the fact that he’s also playing the theme to Forsaken (the expansion where Uldren Sov killed him) on a harmonica makes the scene all the more poignant. The narrative this time around is far more linear in scope, with the Pale Heart destination acting as a side-to-side destination that you fight your way across over the course of the campaign, learning more about the traveller, the Darkness as well as the Witness, ultimately discovering the means of defeating the entity, once and for all. The mission structure is more personal also, focusing on rebuilding the vanguard in the pale heart rendition of the old tower from D1, helping them through their own doubts and struggles as a result. One key moment that finally showcased Big Blue’s tragic backstory to a significant degree was the mission Exegesis, voiced now by Keith David following the passing of Lance Riddick in 2023. The loss of his wife Safia and son Hakim are the driving force behind Zavala as a character, which are even more poignant in The Final Shape, showcasing his ambivalence of being a Lightbearer, and his admission that they should look to the darkness for answers in response to The Witness’ salvation.

Following in the Witch Queen and Lightfall’s footsteps, The Final Shape once again offers both a legendary campaign that increases the difficulty for a greater challenge, and when considering the weight of the battles ahead, it feels only fitting to play the campaign the way it was meant to be played, rewarding you with a complete set of gear right in the middle of the power grind at 1960. The narrative is comprised of around 7 main missions (8 if you include the new Strike) and works at setting up the different areas of the Pale Heart for the guardian to later explore (the patrol zone is completely solo this time around). Upon reaching the campaigns final moments, it becomes clear that the narrative isn’t quite yet over, and whilst the means of destroying have been discovered (those creepy blanket statues discovered during Shadowkeep now show their true purpose) it will take a world’ s first completion of the new raid ‘Salvation’s Edge’ during the 48h contest mode where a fireteam can finally undo the Witness’ chokehold on the traveller for good, leaving them vulnerable to the finishing blow. With only one clear within the first 24 hours, Salvation’s Edge is being dubbed as the hardest raid that Bungie has ever released, to the point where me and my own clan are still yet to get a completion down; mechanically, this is Destiny raiding at it’s best. Following the completion of the world’s first, a new 12-man activity (recalling the Garden of Salvation raid glitch was brilliant here) was unlocked called Excision, and I have to say that this activity (complete with its cutscenes) was one of the best experiences I’ve had in gaming, period. Excision acts as Destiny’s equivalent to the Battle of Helm’s Deep; nearly every character we’ve had dealings with over the last 10 years makes an appearance for the final battle (from the Drifter to Savathûn) all lending aid in the form of various buffs over the course of the 40 minute long battle against the Witness’ forces (including the new enemy type called the Dread) ultimately leading to the 12 guardians channelling the light (think the Care Bear Stare) and ultimately destroying the Witness for good, but not without our Ghost taking a battering as a result. Ghost shows signs of wear and tear over the course of the campaign, but what transpires at the end of Excision is enough to bring the toughest SOB on the planet to tears, acting as a perfect conclusion to such a momentous battle.

Guardian Excision-hands: The final activity of the campaign: Excision, is the Destiny 2 equivalent of the Battle for Helm’s Deep, acting as the perfect conclusion to the Light and Darkness Saga.

So, we’ve established that the narrative for TFS is excellent, but what about the gameplay? Large and part Destiny 2 plays how it always has, its looter/shooter core has remained largely the same, with additions being made on top for more emergent gameplay. The biggest addition is the inclusion of the prismatic subclass, which takes the best fragments, aspects and supers from all of the 3.0 loadouts from recent years and combines them into a singular subclass, allowing you to synergise your favourite builds into one. As a Hunter main, the combination of Winter’s Shroud, Combination Blow, Stylish Executioner and the exotic Liar’s Handshake is downright one of the most broken, fun builds I’ve ever used, acting as a perfect synergy between top-tier arc and void subclasses. The primary new mechanic is the new transcendence skill which situates itself beneath the super meter; as you deal damage with light and dark abilities/weapons, this meter builds which is then activated with a press of L3 and R3, increasing damage resistance, weapon damage, as well as your grenade and melee abilities recharge much faster, but the cream of the crop is the new prismatic grenades that each class has access to during this state.

Other gameplay additions worth mentioning are the new UI which sees the buffs and debuffs remain on the left-hand side of the screen, weapon perks are now above the super bar, and mission critical information (like DPS windows for raids) are now at the top of the screen in a larger font. Small changes like this make the game that much more fluid and easier to track, showcasing Destiny 2’s stellar combat better than ever before. In addition is the new pathfinder system, which replaces weekly vendor bounties in the form of branching challenges that connect to one another, allowing you to choose a path to your powerful/pinnacle rewards through challenges based around the Pale Heart destination and playlist activities. All in all, it’s hard to fault anything that Bungie has managed to achieve with The Final Shape, the extra time in the oven has proved beyond a measure of a doubt that Bungie wanted to close off their flagship franchises’ main story arc with a bang. Whilst this isn’t the end of Destiny 2 with episodic content following for the year (the Dreadnought is returning, wooo) those that do decide to call it quits here cannot say that it didn’t have a superb ending, that made all of the years of weathering through the game’s high and lows worth every second.

A PlayStation 5 review code was provided by Premier Comms.

The post Review – Destiny 2: The Final Shape (PlayStation 5) appeared first on GameHype.

V Rising was quite the smash-hit when it dropped onto Steam last year. The adventure of being a vampire lord was pretty enticing in the...

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Enlarge / A big erdtree casts a big shadow. (credit: Namco Bandai)

The good news for Elden Ring fans is that the two-plus-year wait for the game's first DLC, "Shadow of the Erdtree," will end in just a couple of months. The bad news is that "Shadow of the Erdtree" will also be the last bit of DLC for FromSoftware's multimillion-selling action RPG.

In a wide-ranging interview with Chinese site Zhihu (machine translation), Elden Ring producer Hidetaka Miyazaki said "Shadow of the Erdtree" contains a lot of existing lore and content that was created for the original game but couldn't fit into the final package. Miyazaki said the team decided to release all of that unused content as one large DLC expansion, rather than multiple smaller bits, because "if they were sold separately, the freedom of exploration and sense of adventure would be reduced."

As for just how big the DLC will be, Miyazaki balked when the interviewer asked how long it would take players to complete. Miyazaki brought up memories of being called a liar after estimating in an earlier interview that the original game would only take about 30 hours of play to complete—crowdsourced game-length database HowLongToBeat puts the "main story" estimate closer to 60 hours.

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The United States is not building enough transmission lines to connect regional power networks. The deficit is driving up electricity prices, reducing grid reliability, and hobbling renewable-energy deployment.

At the heart of the problem are utility companies that refuse to pursue interregional transmission projects, and sometimes even impede them, because new projects threaten their profits and disrupt their industry alliances. Utilities can stall transmission expansion because out-of-date laws sanction these companies’ sweeping control over transmission development.

As we increasingly electrify our homes, transportation, and factories, utility companies’ choices about transmission will have huge consequences for the nation’s economy and well-being. About 40 corporations, valued at a trillion dollars, own the vast majority of transmission lines in the United States. Their grip over the backbone of U.S. grids demands public scrutiny and accountability.

Many Lines, Stable Power

High-voltage transmission lines move large amounts of energy over long distances, linking power generation to consumption. A transmission network contains webs of connections, which create a reliable, redundant power-supply system of massive scale.

At any given time, thousands of power plants supply just enough energy to transmission networks to meet demand. The rules that orchestrate the movement of electricity through this network determine who generates power, and how much. The goal is to keep the lights on at a low cost by utilizing an efficient mix of power plants.

Building more transmission increases the capacity and connectivity of the system, allowing new power plants to connect and more power to flow between transmission networks. This is why utility companies are not embracing transmission expansion. They don’t want their power plants to face competition or their regional alliances to lose control over their networks.

Expansion can open opportunities for new power-plant and transmission developers to undercut utility companies’ profits and take control over the rules that shape the industry’s future. Utility companies are prioritizing their shareholders over the public’s need for cleaner, cheaper, and more reliable energy.

Old Alliances, Old Technology

Transmission networks in the United States, which move alternating current, were built over the last century largely by for-profit utility companies, and to a lesser extent by nonprofit utilities operated by governments and local communities. The lines tend to be concentrated around fossil-fuel reserves and population centers but are also shaped by historic utility alliances.

Where utilities agreed to trade energy, they built sufficient transmission to move power between their local service territories. As utility alliances expanded, transmission networks grew to include new members, but connections to nonallied utilities tended to be weaker.

The result of these generations-old alliances is a U.S. system fragmented into about a dozen regions with limited connectivity between them. The regions are distributed across three separate and largely isolated networks, called “interconnections”–Eastern, Western, and most of Texas.

An October 2023 report from the U.S. Department of Energy reveals the severity of the problem. Based on studies conducted by national labs and academic researchers, the DoE calculated that interregional transmission in the United States must expand as much as fivefold to maintain reliability and improve resilience to extreme weather and provide access to low-cost clean energy.

The value of linking regional networks is widely accepted globally. The European Commission in 2018 set a target for each member country to transmit across its borders at least 15 percent of the electricity produced in its territories. By the end of 2022, 23 gigawatts of cross-border connections in Europe were under construction or in advanced stages of permitting, with much more on the way.

Big Benefits

One of the main values of connecting regional networks is that it enables—and is in fact critical for—incorporating renewable energy. For instance, four proposed high-voltage lines totaling 600 kilometers along the seam of regional networks in the upper Midwest could connect at least 28 gigawatts of wind and solar. These lines have been on the drawing board for years, but utilities in the neighboring regions have not moved them forward. The cost of the project, estimated at US $1.9 billion, may seem like a major investment, but it is a fraction of what U.S. utilities spend each year rebuilding aging transmission infrastructure.

Plus, adding interregional transmission for renewables can significantly reduce costs for consumers. Such connections allow excess wind and solar power to flow to neighboring regions when weather conditions are favorable and allow the import of energy from elsewhere when renewables are less productive.

Proposed new transmission lines in the upper Midwest could connect at least 28 gigawatts of wind and solar to regional networks.Joint Targeted Interconnection Queue Study (JTIQ), MISO, SPP

Even without renewables, better integrated networks generally lower costs for consumers because they reduce the amount of generation capacity needed overall and decrease energy market prices. Interregional transmission also enhances reliability, particularly during extreme weather.

In December 2022, Winter Storm Elliott disabled power plants and pipelines from North Dakota to Georgia, leading to power outages in the South and billions of dollars in excess energy charges across the Eastern United States. Limited interregional connections staved off disaster. These links moved electricity to where it was most needed, helping to avoid the sort of catastrophe that befell Texas’s isolated electric grid the year before, when a deep freeze left millions without power for days.

Power, Profit, and Control

But from the perspective of utility companies, interregional transmission presents several drawbacks. First, building such connections opens the door for competitors who may sell lower-priced power into their region. Second, utilities make far more money constructing power plants than building transmission lines, so they are reluctant to build connections that might permanently reduce their opportunities for future generation investments.

This comparison of current interregional transfer capacity and anticipated need shows that regions will need to increase transmission significantly, assuming moderate load and high clean-energy growth.“National Transmission Needs Study,” U.S. Department of Energy

Third, major interregional transmission projects are less financially attractive to utility companies in comparison with smaller ones. For larger projects, utilities may have to compete against other developers for the opportunity to profit from construction. The utility industry sponsors third-party oversight of such projects, while smaller projects are less scrutinized by the industry. Smaller projects are easier to pull off and more profitable than the larger ones, because they need fewer construction permits, face less review by regulators and industry, and are built by utilities without competition from other developers.

Fourth, interregional lines threaten utility companies’ dominance over the nation’s power supply. In the power industry, asset ownership provides control over rules that govern energy markets and transmission service and expansion. When upstart entities build power plants and transmission lines, they may be able to dilute utility companies’ control over power-industry rules and prevent utilities from dictating decisions about transmission expansion.

Help on the Hill

Addressing the transmission shortage is on the agenda in Washington, but utility companies are lobbying against reforms. In September, Senator John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.) and Representative Scott Peters (D-Calif.) introduced the BIG WIRES Act to force utilities or competing developers to build more interregional links. In 2022, Senator Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) proposed an approach in which transmission developers recommend projects to the DoE. If the agency deems a project to be in the national interest, federal regulators could permit the project’s construction and force utilities to pay for it.

Meanwhile, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is currently reevaluating how utilities develop and operate transmission networks and may issue new rules in the coming months. In response, utilities are preparing litigation that could strip FERC of authority to impose any transmission rules at all. Their goal is to protect their profits and control, even if it comes at the consumer’s expense.

The U.S. Department of Energy is pitching in too. On 6 February, the department announced it would award $1.2 billion to support new high-voltage transmission lines, on top of the $1.3 billion it provided last fall to three interstate projects. Later this year, it plans to unveil its long-awaited national plan for a large-scale transmission build-out. But without industry support or tens of billions in additional funding from Congress to build these projects, the agency’s vision will not be realized.

Leading With Technology

New business models and technologies offer hope. Investors and entrepreneurs are developing long-distance direct-current lines, which are more efficient at moving large amounts of energy over long distances, compared with AC. These DC projects sidestep the utility-dominated transmission-expansion planning processes.

Many high-voltage DC (HVDC) transmission lines are already in operation, especially in China and Europe. In fact, DC lines are now the preferred choice in Europe’s plans to unite the continent.

The United States lacks a coordinated national planning effort to connect regional networks, but developers can make progress project by project. For example, future DC lines will connect generators in Kansas to a neighboring network in Illinois, stretch from Wyoming to California, and move wind and solar energy across the Southwest. Each of these projects will move renewable energy from where it can be generated cheaply to larger markets where power prices are higher, and in doing so they will help bolster the country’s regional transmission networks.

These pioneering projects show that utility companies in the United States don’t have to build interregional lines, but they do need to get out of the way. Transmission rules written by utilities and their industry allies can obstruct, delay, and add costs to these new projects. Streamlining federal and state permitting processes can encourage more investment, but cutting government red tape will not neutralize utility companies’ objections to interregional transmission.

U.S. regulators and Congress must press forward. Promising proposals that promote new business models and limit utility control are on the table. Our energy future is on the line.