First Thing Bungie Asked Lucasfilm About Its Star Wars-themed...

You know the emergency lights are blinking at Bungie when the developer starts putting out balance changes with triple digit percent buffs in a bid to lure Destiny 2's dwindling playerbase back. That was the case with yesterday's ability tuning blog, which saw the Hunter class eating especially well. (About time too.) Today, attention turned to next week's Renegades launch, in the form of a live stream breaking down what to expect from the Star Wars-themed expansion.

Although I wrote previously that I had no interest in cosplaying as Darth Vader, I have warmed up to the idea of injecting some Star Wars flavour in the form of blaster weapons, some quasi-Jedi on Sith beef, and of course an ersatz lightsaber. Still, there are plenty in what remains of the community with doubts about the wisdom of smushing two sci-fi franchises together. I found it reassuring to hear the game's narrative director Alison Lührs admit that the first thing the Bungie team asked when they sat down with LucasFilm in San Francisco was: 'What's the bad version of this?'"

I guess it made sense to get the image of Jar Jar Binks hurling a Nova Bomb out of the way early. Lührs stopped short of detailing what the nightmare scenario looked like, but the point was made that Renegades couldn't "feel like a one-off or a side quest", meaning it needs to fit cleanly into the overarching narrative that began with The Edge of Fate.

To that end, Bungie went for a "scoundrel fantasy" in which the Guardian, under the direction of The Drifter (Destiny's resident moral grey zone), pulls together a ragtag team doing jobs for various criminal syndicates. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about Vex wearing trenchcoats, but what am I going to do—quit after 10k+ hours? I don't think so.

These jobs take the form of the new Lawless Frontier activity, which sees fireteams of three tackling Smuggling, Bounty Hunt and Sabotage missions. There are three maps to play on—Europa, Mars, and Venus—chosen for their similarity to Star Wars locations. Intriguingly, you can play with 'invasions' on or off, depending on whether you want to face a potential one-time attack from an enemy guardian.

You'll also be able to unlock new Renegades abilities, which replace your grenade and melee ability, and will be useable in both the campaign missions and the Lawless Frontier mode. In the same way the Matterspark was only available during Kepler content in Edge of Fate (or if you were cheating in PvP), you won't be able to tak

Source: PC Gamer