The list of complaints that players have with the current state of Destiny 2 is lengthy. Whether it be issues with the game’s new activities hub–the Portal–an unfulfilling grind for better loot, the implied irrelevance of old gear, the quality of missions that are available, or progress-stalling bugs, the argument for this being the lowest point in Destiny’s history is strong–despite some other periods that put up competition for that title.
While it’s impossible to know how the playerbase at large will holistically receive the content I experienced at a two-day preview of Destiny 2’s upcoming Renegades expansion, what I do know is that there is a lot there for the community to engage with, which already feels like a step up from the previous expansion The Edge of Fate.
When Renegades launches in December, the first thing players will encounter is its campaign, which is serving double duty. Its first responsibility is as a continuation of The Fate Saga, the multi-expansion story that kicked off with The Edge of Fate. At the end of that release, we learned of a vague prophecy that foretold the end of everything, lest our player Guardians “bind the Nine;” a group of primordial, fourth-dimensional beings who pull the strings of Destiny’s universe. But what does binding the Nine actually entail? That’s the million-glimmer question at the heart of the saga.
The second responsibility of Renegades is to more deeply ingrain Star Wars into the DNA of Destiny, elevating Lucasfilm’s franchise from a mere inspiration and turning this expansion into a quasi-adaptation. Thankfully, the Jedi Order, Kylo Ren, and lightsabers aren’t materializing all of a sudden into the Destiny universe, but deliberate proxies for them and myriad other Star Wars elements are.
Renegades Nails Its Thematic Balance
In every announcement around Renegades made by developer Bungie thus far, developers have alluded to striking a perfect balance between a campaign that is undeniably Destiny and also unmistakably Star Wars. From what I played during that two-day session, I am confident the team has delivered on this element of the expansion.
This is best illustrated in Renegades’ fantastic opening mission. There’s a new enemy on the scene: the Barant Imperium, a new faction of Cabal that serves as Destiny’s analog for Star Wars’ Empire. This threat has seemingly sprung up from nowhere, and the Drifter believes its sudden arrival has the Nine written all over it. Putting together a ragtag crew consisting of the Guardian, Eris Morn, and Eido, the Drifter manages to steal a data disk from the Imperium that holds the secrets to its meteoric rise. Not wishing to get humanity caught up in yet another war with the Cabal, the Vanguard has ordered the group to have a babysitter in the form of Aunor, a Guardian of the regimented Praxic Order (read: Jedi Order).
While the Drifter et al. manage to escape with the data disk, it isn’t long before they’re dragged into the belly of an Imperium ship by a tractor beam and confronted by Lume, the legion’s general. In league with Lume is Bael, a Dredgen, or “dark” Guardian–the same faction the Drifter formerly hailed from, back when he was known as Dredgen Hope. The Imperium captures the Drifter, freezes him with Stasis, and it’s the Guardian’s job to shoot their way through the Cabal ship to rescue him. The opening mission ends with Dredgen Bael facing off against Aunor, the pair wielding their Praxic Blades. I shouldn’t have to explain what those are an analog for.
While on paper, this mission is heavy handed on the Star Wars references, remixing the opening and ending of A New Hope with tinges of The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi and various other references thrown in for good measure, it all works, and it all feels like a true-to-Destiny mission when playing through it. The rest of what we played of the campaign follows this formula, and at all times both halves of Renegades feel in near-perfect harmony.
However, I do have some concerns. There is a lot being thrown at the player, with the three factions of the Praxic Order, the Dredgen, and Barant Imperium all pretty much making their debut; the former two have been around in Destiny lore for a while, but have never taken center stage before. And that’s to say nothing of the three crime syndicates that players meet further into the campaign. Mixed in with the prophecy and the Nine, this expansion does not seem to be a great narrative onboard for new or long-lapsed Guardians, which I imagine Bungie is hoping for with the Star Wars tie-in dangling in front of potential players.
During the preview, we jumped around a bit in the story, playing through the beginning and then, after a few missions, hopping to the end of the first Act. That final Act one mission deliciously subverts a traditional Star Wars trope and results in a satisfying twist that raises the stakes of the conflict considerably. We then jumped ahead again for another mission or two, before ending with the Exotic mission that sees the player receive their own Praxic Blade. In short, there are chunks of the story we didn’t experience that made certain plot points difficult to follow. I expect those missing chunks to succinctly tie everything together, as what we did experience in these individual bubbles was really strong, but we won’t know until we play through the campaign at launch if Bungie has delivered yet another banger narrative installment.
The Praxic Blade Will Shake Up The Meta
Speaking of the Praxic Blade, by god, the team has finally delivered a satisfying melee weapon. Of course, it’s building off of fiction’s most iconic weapon, but its implementation in Destiny 2 will be an actual game-changer for the first-person shooter. You can slash at enemies with the Praxic Blade, throw it like a boomerang, and deflect incoming fire; it has all the functionality of a lightsaber. The Blade feels incredibly versatile, especially as we got to spend time with all the mods that you can eventually unlock to alter how it functions. Having a way to buy yourself time when being assaulted by a litany of attacks on harder difficulty modes with the Blade’s deflective capabilities is a much welcomed addition to Destiny’s toolbox, and I cannot wait to see its effect on the game’s meta.
Yes, you can alter the color of the Blade. When you acquire it, it will be either blue or green, which might depend on certain parameters, but the devs were tight-lipped when asked about why members of the preview received either color. You can also unlock a red blade, and while I’m prohibited from talking about additional colors, there are a healthy assortment. Most of these additional colors can be acquired through play, although a few will be exclusive to the game’s Eververse storefront, where you’ll also find additional hilt variants, something that a handful of the creators in attendance noted the Destiny 2 audience will absolutely make a big stink about.
In addition to the Praxic Blade are new heat-based ranged weapons that run the gamut of kinetic, energy, and power types. When firing, heat builds up in the guns over time and instead of reloading, you’ll need to vent the heat to keep firing. Some heat weapons also have a window during which, if they are vented moments before they overheat, the venting process will go much faster, similar to the active reload mechanic of the Gears of War franchise.
During our preview, we got to play around with a large selection of the heat weapons coming to the game, and while I don’t think the venting mechanic is going to have as radical an impact on Destiny as the Praxic Blade, I believe it’s a good thing that the game is getting a whole new pool of weapons with their own exclusive stats and mods. And yes, several of those guns are accompanied with satisfying Star Wars sound effects (the expansion’s audio design, including its John Williams-infused soundtrack, is a major highlight).
New Abilities Make The Lawless Frontier Worth Exploring
Beyond the campaign, the meat of Renegades is the Lawless Frontier, a new activity that aims to sustain the game’s audience until the next expansion. In order to disrupt the Barant Imperium, the Guardian heads to Tharsis Outpost on Mars to mingle with three criminal syndicates: the Eliksni Pikers, the Cabal Totality Division, and the Vex Tharsis Reformation. Using a holomap, players can undertake one of three different mission types, going up against one of the three syndicates. Bounty Hunts have players focus on taking out a high-value target, Smuggle sees players stealing loot, and Sabotage focuses on players undermining syndicate equipment, although all three mission types mix and match different sub-objectives.
I had two major takeaways from the Lawless Frontier. The first was that the variety of locations was welcome, especially after how much The Edge of Fate expansion focused on its single new location Kepler. The Lawless Frontier missions will take place on Mars, Europa, and Venus, with each getting several new maps where the planets more aesthetically align with their Star Wars counterparts of Tatooine, Hoth, and Dagobah, respectively. This is yet another seamless infusion of the Luscafilm franchise into the game, bringing a new life to these well-trod territories.
The second takeaway is that these mission types focus on what Destiny does best: gunplay. They’re incredibly active, and don’t ask you to aimlessly meander between encounters like Heresy’s Nether activity. But like the divisive Nether, limited revives and no health regeneration are back. Lawless Frontier activities are extraction missions, with objectives that require you to exfiltrate not only having completed your tasks, but with specific loot caches that you’ll only get to open if you escape. Thankfully, compared to Heresy, health orbs are more plentiful, and new Renegade Abilities provide you varied tools to aid in and change up each mission.
There are nine Renegade Abilities, and each has seven upgrades that are obtainable by increasing your reputation with each of the syndicates. These abilities range from defensive options, like a deployable healing dome, to more offensive loadouts such as the Behemoth, the new AT-ST-inspired Barant Imperium vehicle, which was absolutely overpowered during the preview.
The upgrades for these abilities are also substantial. For example, the healing dome can be enhanced to also rapidly refill your Super meter, and the Behemoth can be equipped with Stasis mortars that freeze your targets. At the preview, we had all nine abilities unlocked for us with their upgrades all maxed out, so it’s impossible to tell what the grind to earn those will be like when the game launches, but at least there’s a genuine incentive to continue to engage with the activity and improve your standing with the syndicates.
There are two additional wrinkles to the Lawless Frontier. The first is that each day, you can align with a different syndicate and participate in specific activities that contribute to that syndicate’s influence in an evolving turf war between the trio, with incentives to switch syndicate affiliation daily. This ties into the contract system, which offers players additional bonuses for completing objectives while pledged to a syndicate. This element was the hardest of all to foresee its success with such a limited playerbase during the preview, but I’m excited at the potential once the expansion is live.
The second wrinkle is that players, like in the Gambit game mode, can invade another fireteam’s activities. This invasion variant is only available at the master and grandmaster level of play, and even then, it’s optional. But the devs insist that players who participate in this alternate game mode, whether they are the invader or the invaded, will be rewarded for doing so (one example being the red crystal for the Praxic Blade).
In the preview, the invasion dynamic definitely had a big effect on gameplay. In one run, for example, my fireteam and I were doing pretty well–until we were invaded. So many holes were poked in our defenses that, by the time we were able to purge the invader from our match, we were on the back foot for the rest of the round. We just barely eked out an extraction.
Back at Tharsis Outpost, you can cash in collected dark matter ingots from your run in return for increased reputation with each of the syndicates. This is not only the way players unlock new Renegade Abilities and their upgrades, but it’s also the way they’ll obtain mods for the Praxic Blade. Plus, each syndicate lays claim over one of the new weapons, which will only be added to the loot pool once players unlock the weapons after increasing their reputation appropriately.
In addition, a new basic currency called credits can be acquired in the Lawless Frontier activity, which you can spend at the Outpost’s bazaar, where players can purchase the expansion’s new weapons and armor or exchange it for another resource. Bungie has clearly done their best to make this element of Tharsis Outpost feel like how a bazaar would operate in a dedicated Star Wars game, but it’s still bound to the wellworn, limited design of Destiny’s user interface, and feels like the least successful integration of the intellectual property in the entire expansion.
The Start Of An Effort To Fix Destiny’s Problems Is There
Renegades is also tweaking some existing Destiny 2 elements, as well. By the time this preview is published, Bungie will have shared a long list (the printout they gave us was 10 pages, double-sided) of alterations it’s making to a majority of the game’s existing arsenal, in an attempt to make some of the pre-Fate Saga gear more viable.
The Portal is also getting something of an update with the addition of “orders.” These are quick tasks available in addition to daily challenges that the game attempts to tailor to each player’s specific build. In addition, you don’t need to check them off once they’ve been completed; you’ll automatically receive their rewards upon completion and the game will immediately slot in new orders as old ones are knocked out. Bungie assured us that a lot of the complaints the community has raised with the game will be more thoroughly addressed in 2026, but there will at least be some attempts to right Destiny 2’s course with Renegades, beyond the nuts and bolts of the expansion itself.
Previewing a Destiny 2 expansion is difficult, as so much of its quality is dependent on whether the playerbase is plugged into it–something we cannot know until the expansion is out. That said, I believe that Renegades is offering plenty of opportunities for players to engage with the game that come closer to what has been on offer with some of its more well-received expansions. I also believe, if the campaign builds on what we’ve already played and continues to push this new saga in an interesting direction with a satisfying conclusion, that those who play Destiny 2 for the story will be satisfied by this release.
Much like how the fate of the universe in Destiny is in the hands of its Guardians, the fate of Destiny the game is in the hands of its players, and Renegades looks poised to give them plenty of new tools to play with. I’m of the belief, from what I’ve played of the expansion, that it is substantial enough to tide the playerbase over for the next six months, buying Bungie much needed time to apply broader improvements to the game. We’ll learn whether that’s the case some time after the expansion launches on December 2 2025 for PC, PlayStation 4 and 5, and Xbox One and Series console.
