I hope you like the aesthetic of rock, because everything here is rocks.

I hope you like the aesthetic of rock, because everything here is rocks.

Why is the Infinite Forest in Destiny 2’s expansion, Curse of Osiris, such an affront when compared to the Prison of Elders from the prior game? This question dug into my brain like a tick after writing last week’s Game Log.

Boiled down to their very basics, each is a modular experience composed of repetitive environmental assets where the player is tasked with little more than fighting opponents. In regards to the Prison of Elders, the repetition is apparent as you’ll largely fight the same foes and bosses every time. Unlike the Infinite Forest, the Prison of Elders was such an enjoyable co-op experience that a new variant is at the top of my most wanted list in Destiny 2’s future expansion.

I think the plain and overused visual assets are a misdirection of the senses. Everything in Destiny 2 becomes repeated content, and therefore familiarity with the environments is bound to happen. Moreover, every mission and strike will make use of the planet’s public world. Repeated visuals is pretty par for the course. I simply think the bland and simple rock formations are an easy substance to latch onto. “It all looks so boring”, one might say. Indeed, the only part of the Infinite Forest worth admiring for its aesthetic is the entrance and exit.

What makes the Infinite Forest such a bland irritation is the gateways. Each module has a “door” that must be activated to create the next module in the path. Each module contains a random assortment of foes, which should theoretically provide some extent of variety. Ah, Hive this module! Cabal the next! Vex fighting Fallen in the third! It should give the Infinite Forest a greater sense of variety than missions and strikes whose roster of foes must maintain a contextual consistency.

This would be true if the conflicts were actually challenging. The player is instead forced to fight the fodder they might typically rush past aboard a sparrow. Many players have begun to try and skip on through, leaping from one piece of block geometry to the next to rush through the doors, but the positioning of the blocks and foes can sometimes impede such aggressive progress. Moreover is the occasional presence of daemons, foes that are no different than any other aside from the necessity to defeat them.

What this makes the Infinite Forest is a regular mission without any objectives of interest, preventing the player from skipping the content they otherwise might in order to reach the more enjoyable fights.

Say hello to your only obstacle and objective that must be repeated five times.

While the enemy A.I. and variety are a strength to Destiny 2, they only shine upon higher difficulties. The Infinite Forest took the grind of the game – the most basic, least challenging content the game has – and forced the player to progress through it for the sake of one interesting set piece. This is the structure of every mission attached to the Curse of Osiris expansion.

The advantage Prison of Elders had, despite being similarly barebones and repetitive, is that players were encouraged to proceed through at higher and higher difficulties. The threat of failure was always present, meaning each player needed to be on point with the strategy. The familiar territory was an advantage to co-operative planning and execution, or to desperate calls to fall back to a known safe zone. Even if everyone was familiar with the basic requirements to defeat that zone’s boss, modifiers would throw players out of safe corners and bottlenecks.

Risk was the advantage that Prison of Elders possessed, and Infinite Forest poses none.

Of course, comparing Prison of Elders and the Infinite Forest is also a poor exercise. The goal of the two is completely different. Instead, we should look into the structure of Strikes for how the Infinite Forest could be improved.

Like the Infinite Forest, a player can only rush past so much of the map and hostiles before crashing into a “gate”. The difference is that these gates in Strikes are precisely what makes them so worthwhile. Push through the Hive forces so that you might pick up the energy orb and slam it into its receptacle. Guard your ghost while it hacks this vaguely important electronic device. Keep the enemy forces from destroying this very important object.

If each of the Infinite Forest’s modules were such an objective – even abridged variants of public or raid events – then I think players would find it much more enjoyable. That the Infinite Forest must also be playable solo at first begs compromise, but this is a Vex simulation. Use specific types of objectives and “gates” for fireteams of specific sizes. Hand wave a lore explanation by claiming the Vex try and manifest a more challenging scenario based on the data of each guardian present.

Despite the plain visuals of the Infinite Forest, I think such modules and modifications would have easily made it a more enjoyable experience. Particularly if there were certain modules that, completed a certain way, could unlock special challenges or treasures. Instead, the Infinite Forest not only feels lazy, but it feels condescending. “Here,” Bungie seems to claim, “shoot things!”

Yes, Destiny 2 is infinitely replayable because shooting things is fun. The mechanics, A.I. and enemy variety are top notch. If that’s all there was to the game then it wouldn’t be a success, and with the Infinite Forest Bungie seems to have stumbled upon an excellent idea that they put the bare minimum effort into.

Seems to have. Let us remember that nothing in game development is easy, and I have no doubts that there were plenty of (potentially humorous) bugs and miscalculations to get the Infinite Forest working. If Bungie is truly going to keep trying to build Destiny 2 over procedural content, however, then they need to make sure they fill these modules with the type of exciting conflicts players enjoy facing.

Whether we’ll see improvements to Curse of Osiris is uncertain, but I have my doubts. I feel that Bungie had very little time to put an expansion together, and so did their best to have something ready for ship date. Had they more time, perhaps Infinite Forest would have more closely resembled the ideas I outlined here.