Category: PlayStation

We’re just one week away from the launch of Destiny 2: The Final Shape on June 4. Bungie’s ambitious expansion marks a momentous crescendo in the 10-year journey players have been on. Guardians can finally enter the Traveler and face new threats conjured and cajoled by The Witness. Luckily, players wield powerful new Transcendence abilities and the ultra-customizable Prismatic subclass.

To help prepare for The Final Shape we have Bungie’s Combat Area Lead, Ben Wommack, to discuss new enemies, abilities, what awaits inside The Traveler, and more.

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PlayStation Blog: The Final Shape marks a pivotal moment for Destiny players. What is the player’s primary goal in the campaign?

Ben Wommack: To enter the Traveler, journey through its Pale Heart, and confront the ultimate antagonist of the last 10 years of Destiny, The Witness, who is enacting its eons-old plan to create The Final Shape of the universe.

How are we seeing The Witness augment aligned enemies, and how does that translate into combat?

By tearing a hole in the Traveler and entering its Pale Heart, The Witness can manipulate the Traveler’s Light and its own Darkness to further its plans to enact The Final Shape. By mixing these paracausal energies, The Witness can bestow its forces with a crude Prismatic shield that can’t be broken by normal attacks. These are known as “Bound” enemies, as they are now invulnerable but also shackled to the powers the Witness is wielding.

Fortunately, players can shatter these shields with their new Transcendence ability, accessible either from Wellsprings found in the world or via equipping the new Prismatic subclass and charging your Light and Darkness bars. Encountering Bound enemies will force players to change up their battlefield plans and weave Transcendence into their flow, creating new opportunities for exciting combat moments.

New Dread enemies enter the fray. What makes them unique to other factions in Destiny 2?

The Dread combatants are built off years of lessons and experiences from the Destiny 2 team. They are the Witness’s personal army it has gathered (even created) to stop anyone from interfering with its plans to enact The Final Shape. We knew they had to feel different from other factions, so we tried a lot of new visual ideas and tried to break expectations with their mechanics.

One example is how the Weaver and Harbinger have Strand powers, which is a first for Destiny combatants. Another is the Husk, who will launch the Geist creature from its body if its weak spot isn’t targeted. My personal favorite is the Grim, our “bat with a gun” or “gun bat!”. Its wings and battlefield mobility are awesome to both see and fight!

Lethal lava rises during a Strike in Destiny 2: The Final Shape, forcing players to avoid touching the floor.

How will the new Transcendence abilities and Prismatic subclass impact competitive play?

We spent careful attention and lots of balancing time on how Prismatic and the Transcendence ability will play in PvP against Guardians of all kinds of builds. Our intention is not to usurp the other subclasses and ways players engage with PvP, but add new elements to the PvP meta space, shift the paradigm a bit, and break expectations in fun ways. Players running Prismatic will feel a bit like a wild card of an opponent sometimes, which brings its own brand of excitement to a match.

One important detail is how your Light and Darkness meters for activating Transcendence will keep their progress after you die in a match and between rounds. It’s totally possible to orient your build around building Transcendence in PvP, which is a fun way to approach using the subclass!

What are your personal favorite examples of Prismatic subclass builds?

I love what we’re calling the “Buddy Build” for Prismatic Warlocks. You equip Phoenix Dive, Hellion, Weaver’s Call, Song of Flame, Storm Grenade, and the Getaway Artist exotic armor. You Phoenix Dive into combat to create Threadlings and a Hellion buddy, then consume your Arc grenade to create an Arc Soul. Afterwards, you cast Song of Flame to bring out all your Solar bird friends!

Enter the Traveler and bring the fight to The Witness when Destiny 2: The Final Shape launches on June 4.

PlayStation Store is joining the Days of Play celebrations with a dedicated promotion! Starting this Wednesday, May 29 for a limited time* players can enjoy discounts on a massive range of titles**.

There’s so many games included, we can’t fit them all here. You can get a preview of just some of the titles that will be included in the promo below. Then, when the dedicated promotion page goes live on PlayStation Store on May 29, head there to see the full list and find out your regional discount pricing. 

And there’s plenty more Days of Play related-celebrations to enjoy! Check out the full range of activities, offers and more in the Days of Play announcement post. 

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*Days of Play promotion is available on PlayStation Store from 00.00am PDT/BST/JST on Wednesday May 29 until 11:59pm PDT/BST/JST on Wednesday, June 12. 
**Title list and discount may differ per region. For more details, please check your dedicated Days of Play promotion page on PlayStation Store when it goes live. 

Until Then is a stunning narrative adventure set in a charming pixelated world inspired by the Philippines. Playing as protagonist Mark, you navigate day-to-day high school insecurities until he begins to realize something more mysterious is going on. Between juggling homework deadlines, navigating relationships, practicing piano, and investigating the strange occurrences happening in between, the developers also sprinkled endearing minigames throughout the story that create depth and delight out of what could have been just mundane moments. 

For example, a walk to the fishball stand to subdue hunger pangs turns into a fierce competition for who can fill up their fishball stick the fastest. Getting extra meta, play the video game within a video game with Cathy & Mark to find out who is the fastest racer. And, of course, what would a carnival outing with friends be without all the classic fair games like whack-a-mole? 

Beyond being just plain entertaining, Until Then’s minigames resonate in unique ways and those among the development team have their own opinions about which minigame stands out among the rest.

A minigame to create interactive worldbuilding

Mickole Klein Nulud, Game Director of Polychroma Games, has nostalgic ties to the ticket vending machine from chapter 1 of the game. “I’d always used them in my college days so it’s nostalgic,” said Nulud. “I replicated its user interface from the real world to the game in detail, which was a very fun process for me.”

Moments in the game like the ticket vending machine, were included to help break up the flow of the game’s dialogue-heavy nature and to create moments of interactive worldbuilding. “It sets up the tone of what kind of experience the player is going to get, where minigames can be as mundane as possible but true to life,” Nulud added.

A minigame to showcase character development

Senior Environment Artist Pia Demanawa’s favorite minigame, the haunted house in the perya, calls out to Filipino culture.‘Perya’ is a Tagalog word for ‘fair’, like a carnival. These week-long events take place throughout the year and are a unique part of Philippine celebrations. From game booths to rides to food stalls, a perya is a place of fun and entertainment for people of all ages.

Until Then brings this to life in chapter 10. Mark runs into one of the new students at the carnival and, after a bit of banter, bets that he can scare more people in the haunted house than she can. You then have two minutes to chase NPCs around the creepy maze, gaining points for each person successfully frightened.

“On its surface, [the haunted house] uses elements of Filipino mythology such as the Kiwig [a shapeshifter that preys on humans] and the Minokawa [a giant, dragon-like bird that can swallow the moon and sun],” Demanawa shared. “The designer for the art of the minigame itself, Vanessa Sumo, really encapsulated what a low-budget, Filipino-themed haunted house would look like from the inside with the stereotypical bahay kubo and the random chickens. The art director, Dominique Duran, additionally found inspiration for aesthetics from the 2012 RPGMaker horror game called Ib, and I thought that it was a wonderful homage to the cult-classic story game.”

Without spoiling too much, this competitive, haunted minigame creates a special moment for Mark, Until Then’s lead, telling more of the story not through the typical dialogue interaction but rather through character interaction within the minigame.

“Because of that, I don’t think the chapter is complete without it,” Demanawa added. “It’s needed to see the character development and charisma that bounces off of these two specific characters. It makes you happy for them, and, I think, it makes you root for them too.”

Minigames to foreshadow story events

Some minigames can be so subtle they might be easy to miss. Joshua James San Juan, Programmer, loves interacting with the school bulletin board. “It’s just fun and satisfying,” he shared, “like the ‘pop’ sound it makes when you remove the pins and watch the posters fall all over the place.” 

For players who pay close attention to the details on the board, you might even find some enlightening clues to what’s coming later in the game. “I think it’s a clever way of showing or hinting at what events are happening and what will take place in the future without directly stating it,” San Juan said. “It also gives a little bit of lore on the setting of the story that will make them understand the world better.”

Minigames to just take a break

There are no surprises here. Kyle Patrick Naval is the game’s composer and has a particular fondness for the jeepney rhythm minigame. “I love playing rhythm games, and making music for that specific minigame was a super fun process,” he shared.

Some minigames might not necessarily have a narrative purpose but can add variety to the gameplay and give players a breather from intense moments. “I think it gives the character somewhat of a little break from what they are experiencing, enjoying the little things, as they say,” Naval said. “It gives the player new minigames to explore and play, and to look forward to what  else they might discover in the game.”

There’s never a dull moment in Until Then. From friendly competition and compelling minigame mechanics to breathtaking scenery and tear-jerking story moments, expect a rollercoaster of emotions and interactions. Until Then launches May 23 on PS5.