#no clue. still too early to tell. we'll make the full judgement later

[thefirstknife]

I've emerged. Did the whole campaign and some side stuff, haven't had time to touch the season but I will do so shortly.

Overall, I really like it. Visually absolutely stunning. I adore Nimbus to death. Love the extent of involvement from Osiris and that we and our Ghost got to speak so much. The whole campaign feels much more Guardian-centric than any other before.

I played on normal mode because I do not want to think about difficulty and to sweat when I'm just trying to get through the story for the first time so difficulty wise, normal mode is fine to me. Didn't experience any issues with that or with new mod system or anything.

Full spoilers under (Deterministic Chaos mission as well) and because it's a long post:

Despite loving it, I feel like some stuff was rushed. One of my major issues is that we did not really have any meaningful explanation about the main point of the story, which is the Veil. I feel like we should've known exactly what it is in order to understand why we're protecting it outside of the whole "the Veil powers Neomuna so if it gets destroyed, people will die." That's understandable enough, but we have no idea what it is. I think we should've known that.

Without knowing what it is, we can't really understand what happened at the end. It's a really shocking, unbelievable and stunning ending, but also confusing. We do not know what happened. Zavala and Ikora both spoke as if the Traveler disappeared which got me confused until I read Ikora's summary in text:

And ofc, until I saw the view in destinations and from the HELM:

From Zavala's speech, I genuinely thought that the Traveler just disappeared entirely, despite us not seeing anything in the cutscene after the Witness entered it. Only this line from Ikora's summary explains that the Traveler isn't gone or destroyed or dead, just kinda... Shut down. I guess.

Which again, we simply do not understand. I love when things are mysterious and we can speculate, but in this case there is nothing to even speculate about. We simply do not know what happened or why. We have no idea what the Witness wants or what it did.

Some of it might get explained in the raid, but I believe that the main campaign plot point should be explained in the campaign. There was a brief possibility that some stuff would be explained in the exotic mission for the machine gun, Deterministic Chaos, but instead of clarifying the Veil, it just made it even more confusing.

Basically, the mission explains that the Vex tried making a copy of the Veil, but the copy was not successful entirely. The copy? The Black Heart in the Black Garden. It obviously didn't pan out for the Vex, but it's unfathomable to me why an object of Light would turn into the Black Heart, even as a failed copy. Not to mention that the Vex can't handle paracausality. Perhaps that is why they failed? There's a lot of text involved in the mission, but it does not explain anything further and it ends with us getting a core from a Vex mind that has yet to be researched.

This might possibly all make clear sense in the future, and I don't mind waiting at all. But I do feel like we could've easily gotten more substantial information during the campaign. The Veil was an entirely new thing introduced here and the whole campaign has us chasing after it, but we have no information about what it is. And the information we do have is wildly conflicting. It's tied to the Light and it's an object of the Traveler, but it's also able to be copied as the Black Heart and can be used to slice open the Traveler? Like, on one hand it's obviously Light based, but on the other it's highly dangerous and helpful to Darkness.

We'll probably find out eventually so I'm not too bothered, I just think we should've found out during the campaign. It's definitely going to be a sore point for everyone, since we literally do not know what we were doing.

On another note, we're finally fully done with Nezarec! A thing I am glad to be wrong and overly cautious about. I had huge dread over hyping myself up for something like that and only for it to not pan out so I advised caution. Luckily, it is panning out!

However, I have some issues with that as well and it mostly stems from the past year of Nezarec simply not being set up sufficiently enough. He got set up as a past disciple and then as having died ages ago and then as having several of his body parts ground into dust and also as a "traitor." Assumed traitor to the Witness since he was a disciple. Then suddenly he's still on the Witness' side. For ... reasons? I guess raid lore will clarify.

I liked the fact that he's shown as "stuck" in a prison of being in between life and death (his lines in the strike), since that fits with where he would be given that he died. And was turned into tea. But we know that he can still speak from his remains so that's cool! I also like how he sounds utterly silly evil. Like in a good way silly. He just sounds evil, which is sometimes refreshing given that all our villains get expanded to the point where I feel sorry for them. I hope he stays like this.

Another thing that bothers me is, again, the whole nightmare thing. It's reiterated once more that he's tied to nightmares, but Lightfall CE specifically untied nightmares from the Lunar Pyramid and Nezarec. Which falls with my issues with him not being set up properly; we should've known about his powers unambiguously when he was introduced in Plunder, or earlier. Again, this might be explained in the raid lore, but I feel like it's something that should've been explained as a part of the setup. I already made the suggestion that Nezarec may have made the nightmares and has nightmare powers and that he distributed that power to other Pyramid ships which would explain why the others have them. I hope this gets addressed or it'll bother me forever because Collector's Edition lore stuff is usually crucial to understanding the new expansion and characters so the contradiction is currently odd. Until we get an explanation ofc.

Another thing I like is how some Tormentors are named! And when they're named, they're also called "Imprints of Nezarec." Suggesting that they're either controlled by him or made by/from him. Or modelled. Not sure which word to use here but they're definitely tied to him. It's an interesting little tidbit. Would explain how they look half Rhulk and half.... something else. That something else, as I've speculated, might be Nezarec and it might explain why the Witness wanted his body parts (though this is then an issue yet again with Plunder because we prevented it from having those body parts. So if the Witness acquired some other body parts regardless, then what was the point of Plunder. I digress).

Also the first Tormentor we see is the only one with a different title:

Hoping for more info about them! Possibly through the raid!

I read all lore tabs that are available and I loved those! Some really cool stuff in some of them. These are all available for reading right away in collections! Seasonal gauntlets have really sweet lore with Saint-14, Caretaker sword actually made me cry with lore about Drifter helping the Eliksni and specifically Eliksni kids. Guardian's Angel Ghost shell killed me dead with lore about Mara being concerned for Crow and Crow accepting her help. Tech Witch Ghost shell mentions Sjur Eido!!!!

From the campaign lore stuff and little details, I really love the lore book Last Days which is about Neomuna citizens preparing for cryo. Some really sweet interactions and information. There's another gay couple in there! And a really neat concept of how the Neomuna citizens choose different appearance for themselves when they're in virtual reality which consists of choosing an avatar and gender (!) and they can change that any time.

Absolutely thrilled that Maya Sundaresh and Chioma Esi, aka Golden Age science wives, were revealed to have been among the founders of Neomuna. They even have areas named after them!

Also super excited to do some side missions like the ones in the Archive about other Cloud Striders. The leader of the Archive, a lady called Quinn sounds really cool and she's voiced in the quests and in patrols, as well as some other really cool characters. Quinn is also super neat because of the lore of the exotic ship Tropopause in which she speaks to Ikora and manages to completely stun Ikora in what interpret as Ikora's wlw impulse. This can be read immediately in collections.

Also, Calus is finally dead and gone! Good riddance bitch! Also super chilling cutscene with him pissing off the Witness. What a bad move, Calus. But I love to see the difference between Calus and Rhulk in how they treat the Witness. Super interesting.

Our Ghost... Man. My boy needs a break. If I see anyone slandering him for anything, I will personally end them. He literally cannot stop being taken over. It's super concerning (and also not fully explained why the Witness can just do that). On the upside, my Ghost shell (catboy) was super funny in those scenes:

Kitty Witness real.

Overall, I liked it and I feel like the story and the new setting and everything adjacent to it has a lot of potential and I'm excited to play more and get more information as we get through the year. I really do think that we'll get everything explained eventually, but it's definitely slightly disappointing that no questions were answered. As a matter of fact, we just got more questions. Things that we never knew existed were brought up only to not be elaborated on at all, but they were treated like the most important thing in the world and crucial aspects of the story. Even if you know that we'll find out eventually, it can feel strange to follow a self-contained expansion story and not get any clarifications as to why we're doing the things we're doing.

Looking forward to seeing more though! Exploring the world is definitely a blast and there's a lot of stuff to do. Strand is also incredibly cool to use and I can't wait to get all upgrades.