The Destiny 2 Season of the Wish update is finally here and, to celebrate, Bungie is effectively slapping this FPS’ players in the face with a new bundle. While presenting new players with some interesting enough rewards to pick up, the new Destiny 2 Starter Pack is ultimately an over-priced selection of mediocre weapons and emblematic of this game’s wider onboarding issues. Destiny 2 might technically be free-to-play, but all its meaningful content is paywalled and this bundle is an insulting cherry on top of that for players hoping to check it out ahead of The Final Shape.
Bungie’s Destiny 2 might be considered one of the best FPS games available right now and a popular choice among players, despite the onslaught of new PS5 games and new Xbox games competing for your spare time, but it’s an experience that is notoriously hard to get into if you’re a newcomer. With so much of its content, new and old alike, locked behind paid DLC (and even more than that vaulted and seemingly gone for good), catching up on what you’ve missed is impossible without spending quite a bit of money. It’s a free-to-play game in name, but little else.
And, now, to make things even worse, if you’re a new player, you’re going to be met with a Starter Pack that’s over-valued at $15 (or around £13) and contains three Exotic guns far from the best Destiny 2 weapons available right now.
As you can see for yourself below, Bungie’s new Destiny 2 Starter Pack comes with the following in-game items, cosmetics, and resources:
- Traveler’s Chosen – Exotic Sidearm
- Ruinous Effigy – Exotic Trace Rifle
- Sleeper Simulant – Exotic Linear Fusion Rifle
- Exotic Ship – Cosmetic
- Exotic Sparrow – Cosmetic
- Exotic Ghost – Cosmetic
- Glimmer (125,000) – Resource
- Enhancement Core (50) – Resource
- Enhancement Prism (5) – Resource
- Ascendant Shard (1) – Resource
If you are a new Destiny 2 player, all of this will absolutely help you get a head start on setting up your best Destiny 2 Titan build, your best Destiny 2 Warlock build, or your best Destiny 2 Hunter build. The weapons are fine enough, but as mentioned above, they’re far from the best Exotics available and the fact that this comes with both a niche Trace Rifle and a Linear Fusion Rifle is limiting when it comes to the playstyles it provides you with. An Auto Rifle or a Shotgun would make this bundle a little more worthwhile – not that it’s really worth your money anyway, new player or otherwise.
As mentioned above, this Destiny 2 Starter Pack will set you back $14.99 – which, in isolation, doesn’t sound so bad. However, It’s almost as much as entire expansions – like Beyond Light ($24.99) and The Witch Queen ($24.99) – and these (along with other DLCs like Shadowkeep and the Forsaken Pack) will open up entire sections of Destiny 2 while still presenting you with the chance to unlock Exotics just as good (if not better) than the ones in the Starter Pack. You’ll also find yourself far from short on resources like Glimmer after just a few hours of playing.
Even if you’re not overly bothered about missing out on the narrative content locked behind these DLCs, you could spend a little less on the current season pass and open up the opportunity to earn some fantastic Destiny 2 Season of the Wish weapons and just as many resources from fun new activities, while also getting access to the new Destiny 2 Wishing All the Best quest story anyhow. It won’t be instantaneous like the Starter Pack, but it’s easily better value for money.
As long-time Destiny 2 content creator ‘Datto‘ explains, this Starter Pack is practically emblematic of Bungie’s apparent unwillingness to listen to Destiny 2 players highlighting the need for better onboarding and “fresh blood” as we head into the delayed Destiny 2 The Final Shape release date. After the Lightfall expansion’s poor reception, this need for new players is even more apparent.
However, greeting those potential players with yet another additional expense – and one that is so over-valued at that – isn’t something that is going to build any sort of goodwill. When you think about all the other free shooting games out there waiting for you to play them, among which are some of the best battle royale games available, this is offputting.
Sure, you don’t actually need to buy this Starter Pack if you want to play Destiny 2, but it’s being seen as a ‘cash grab’ by the community and rightfully so. With the Destiny 2 player count shockingly low heading into the Season of the Wish, we don’t think the new Destiny 2 Wish-Keeper Exotic bow is quite enough to repair the relationship between Bungie and its players – especially after this.