An Unpopular Destiny 2 Mode May Inspire Future Controversial Features in Overwatch 2

Destiny 2’s reign over the action MMO genre has been unparalleled in the last few years. Yet, the Bungie product has faced formidable challenges along the way to global fame from other free-to-play games like the Overwatch series. With each new expansion and Raid Race, Destiny 2 continues to attract hordes of esports gamers and Twitch influencers thanks to its innovative approach to both PvE and PvP gameplay. Overwatch 2’s planned PvE story mode is incorporating more futuristic ideas, and developer Blizzard could look to Destiny 2’s Gambit Mode for inspiration as it creates new content for the game.

Combining features of NPC interaction and online gameplay, PvPvE has been hailed as the future of gaming by some. Yet, the mechanism has been slow to spread its wings and soar in the business. For the most part, players spend the majority of their time in Crucible, the game’s conventional PvP mode. Nonetheless, Gambit has failed to capture the interest of Destiny 2’s players, with average playtime consistently trailing that of Crucible. There are a number possible explanations for Gambit’s failure, and before attempting to implement a PvPvE structure in Overwatch 2, the developers should learn from the mode’s past.

Destiny 2’s Gambit Mode:

Destiny 2’s Gambit Mode has had a rocky road to success, falling far short of Bungie’s early goals in every respect. Although gamers are usually eager to try out novel techniques, Gambit Mode has failed to win over the Destiny community, with most players instead opting to spend their time exploring the various game modes in Destiny 2. Bungie has tried numerous times to improve the Gambit Mode in order to pique players’ interest, but their efforts have largely been fruitless.

Since its debut, Gambit Mode has had an unsteady equilibrium, plagued by issues with Titan builds, invasions, and other small glitches. After hearing the many criticisms from the player population, the creators of Destiny 2 made a number of modifications in the 2022 addition, The Witch Queen, to enhance the gameplay experience. The changes were made to boost the benefits of collecting motes and decrease the frequency with which really powerful player builds may melt bosses. While the expansion did improve things in some ways—for example, by boosting respawn points and hiding a player’s motes from an invader—it also introduced several new issues that made the Gambit’s more grating features even more apparent to players.

Damage gating was implemented by Bungie to address the issue of players easily beating bosses after a few Envoy wins. This made Primevals nearly unbeatable until all Envoys were eliminated from the battlefield. This system overcompensated for the complexity problem, however, and now players are less likely to use Gambit Mode unless they absolutely have to. As recently as January, in the weeks leading up to the release of the highly anticipated Lightfall addition, complaints surfaced of persistent flaws in the game that had not been addressed by the improvements made for The Witch Queen expansion. There were reports of players being completely banned from the game’s servers and of them not receiving post-match awards or Rank XP.

Gambit’s Troubles May Allow Overwatch 2 PvPvE

Gambit’s gameplay issues and lack of character development effectively rendered it unusable. As a result, Gambit’s already low reputation suffered another hit as players were unwilling to put in the effort required by a game that offered no assurance of success. Misfortune has caused it to become one of the least played modes in Destiny 2, and director Joe Blackburn’s State of the Game talk does not bode well for the mode’s inclusion in future plans for the game.

Although Gambit’s glaring absence from the post caused some surprise, it was not entirely unexpected, given the game’s history of difficulties and the fact that it was designed to be a significant part of Destiny 2’s core ritual activity grind. It’s hard to deny the promise of the PvPvE mechanism, and Overwatch 2’s dabbling in a PvE mode may pave the way for further implementation of the system in future iterations of the game. The addition of a PvE mode in Overwatch 2 is a direct result of the popularity of the game’s PvP mode, which attracted 25 million users in the first ten days after its release.

Although the figures were amazing, players did notice a decline in quality between Overwatch and its sequel, and while Blizzard has made a few tweaks to enhance Overwatch 2’s gameplay, the success of the PvE mode might define the title’s fate for years to come. Blizzard aims to expand Overwatch’s backstory via PvE, and they hope to do so by adding a wide variety of enemies for players to face. Although speculation has been rampant in some quarters, finding specifics on the mode has been difficult since the company remains silent on Overwatch 2’s PvE content.

Blizzard might expand the Overwatch canon by venturing into PvPvE if the PvE mode in Overwatch 2 lives up to the hype around its reported depth. Creating a mode that successfully combines PvE and PvP is an easy feat, but Overwatch can learn a lot from Destiny 2’s experiences with Gambit. Despite Gambit’s poor rep, the format’s advances — however little when weighed against the game’s many flaws — give reason to be optimistic about PvPvE’s future.