Bungie dropped a big gameplay reveal for Destiny 2: The Final Shape today, loudly declaring that the MMO's next expansion is going to take a sledgehammer to every single build currently available with wild combinations of new and existing abilities.
The Final Shape is adding a new subclass after all, but it also sort of isn't. The new Prismatic subclass is a mix of Light and Dark, letting players combine abilities from all five bespoke subclasses in their own way. Melee, grenade, class, and Super abilities from the three Light classes and two Dark classes are all up for grabs, with Prismatic packing a new Transcendence bar, fueled by dealing Light and Dark damage, that grants a stackable weapon damage bonus and instantly refreshes your abilities to use special grenades that combine two different elements for each class
Bungie describes Prismatic as an "advanced" subclass with more Fragments, more Fragment slots, and much wider buildcrafting potential. It's hard to imagine ever using anything else, but we may see some buffs to mono subclasses to compensate. It seems that only select abilities will be available via Prismatic, but folks, we saw an Arc Warlock using Strand melees, Stasis turrets, and triggering Void Devour the possibilities look endless, and that's somehow only the beginning.
Years after the original Destiny, Destiny 2 is also reintroducing Exotic class items, but in a frankly terrifying new way. With The Final Shape, players can chase randomly rolled Exotic class items that, for the first time, combine two Exotic armor perks into one slot. The kicker is that the Exotic perks you roll don't even have to come from armor available to your class. We saw a Hunter using a cloak featuring the Exotic perk of the Titan Exotic Synthoceps, for instance. Here, too, the possibility matrix is almost scary. The catch is that these duo Exotics are explicitly tied to Prismatic, which only makes the subclass more appealing.
Here's a snippet of concept art, apparently cooked up ages ago but only shared during today's reveal, that encapsulates the Light-on-Dark hybrid theme:
The blueprint is clear: all our existing powers, plus the all-new Exotics and Light kits in The Final Shape, reworked into absurd new custom loadouts. It's the kind of thing that Destiny players have fantasized about for years, and even Bungie reckons "it feels a little game-breaking."
"We want it to feel a little broken," one dev says of the new Exotic class items. That sounds about right, based on the combos shown today.