The release of the much-anticipated DLC for “Destiny” has left a bitter taste in some players’ mouths, particularly those who have decided not to buy the new content package yet. According to reports, the game’s Weekly Strikes can now potentially be locked for players who don’t own the DLC, and this is actually already happening. Because the Weekly Nightfall and Heroic Strike rotations feature missions that are only available through the DLC, players who don’t own the new content can’t access those missions.
Those players are practically limited to two options – either buy the new content or wait one week for the next rotation. And as if that’s not bad enough, players have reported changes in the loot balance which make the situation even worse. Apparently, certain drops have been removed from Weekly Strikes from the original game, and are now only available in the new DLC missions.
Which means that players who are looking for specific high-level items are forced to buy the DLC if they want to obtain them. Bungie have made a vague public statement that didn’t really address any of those issues, and it’s not known if the company is planning to reverse their decision.
However, players have already been expressing a lot of negativity about the changes, and this seems to be impacting the release of the DLC somewhat negatively. Some seem concerned about the future of the game, and possible fragmentation of its community by any further similar updates. In addition, the fact that the developers have gone to such lengths in order to ensure that players have to buy the new DLC has been received very badly.
On the other hand, there’s also the opinion that this is all unsurprising, given Activision’s past. The company is known for doing everything possible to monetize their products as completely as possible, and this has led to some questionable business decisions in the past. While the initial release of “Destiny” was good and most players were happy with the game’s quality, concerns about its future with regards to monetization practices were raised almost immediately, sparked by certain rumors.
The initial statement made by Bungie regarding the current controversy didn’t do much to address the public concerns about the game’s future, and players have been asking for a more detailed explanation of the company’s plans for the development of “Destiny”. There has been a rather large group of players requesting a rollback on the decision to lock Weekly Strikes behind the DLC paywall, although it’s not known if Bungie would be willing to make such a change to the game’s system so late in its development. In addition, it’s not known if Activision would allow that, even if Bungie were willing to do it.