After having more time to fully play through what this DLC has to offer, I can strongly affirm my original stance on this expansion; It has incredibly strong gameplay, probably the best we've gotten in a while, especially after the state that Witch Queen and it's subsequent seasons left the game in. Lightfall also comes with one of the best patrol spaces we've gotten since Forsaken, there are many events happening, not just Public Events, and I rarely find myself getting bored of exploring Neomuna.

The campaign in terms of difficulty I found it to be a welcome challenge. Many people struggled with different sections of the campaign, and while I did struggle at points, I saw them as challenges to overcome, rather than faults in the game's balance or design; After all, *I* was the one who chose to play on Hard, so I feel it should be hard, especially since most encounters are pushovers in normal. Speaking of difficulty, it's very refreshing for almost everything in this game to be somewhat difficult and require thought again; The seasonal content is great, Neomuna always has tough enemies to fight, even when near or at the soft power cap, and Nightfalls, even at the lowest difficulty, are challenging again.

Buildcrafting is now easier than ever, making it much more open to experimentation, while also allowing for much finer tuning of specific aspects of the mod system with how streamlined it all is. This does allow for any player to become jacked once they invest enough into armor, however, which has led to some questionable balance in PvE; Ability spam is still a problem I feel, maybe having some sort of system that scales the effectiveness of abilities based on how long they recharge for would be helpful? But then again, I'm not Bungie, I can't make these changes nor do I know how Destiny's ♥♥♥♥ wank engine works behind the scenes.

Now all of this was discussing Gameplay and balance changes brought with Lightfall, which is by far the strongest reason to buy the expansion. However, if you were coming for a half decent story off the heels of Witch Queen; Don't bother. The story in this expansion ends rather anti-climatically and inconclusive, we have somehow slipped back into D1 era writing of setting up a lot of interesting plot details, but then choosing to not elaborate on any of it and blue balling the player. By the time the campaign is over, you don't know what the Macguffin is you're chasing, and this isn't helped by Post Campaign content either. This isn't mentioning the campaign's obsession with Strand; In Bungie's attempt to avoid Stasis 2 (Underwhelming Sub-Class, intense grind to get a whole Sub-Class, horrible balance), they made a campaign that focuses heavily on something that isn't the main story. The campaign as a result feels very crammed and half baked, practically forcing players interested in the story to wait until Final Shape, and who knows if that will even be worth waiting to see the conclusion for with how this expansion went.

After Witch Queen, I was convinced Bungie had finally learned how to tell a story in Destiny's universe, something that Bungie for some reason has perpetually struggled with since Destiny's Launch, but this expansion has only taught me that Bungie seems to be very gameplay focused rather than an equal focus on story and gameplay, which wouldnt be an issue if Destiny didn't have such a heavy emphasis on it's narrative, and it has since it's launch. I am not asking for a Witch Queen 2, or even a Taken King 2, but just more consistency with Expansion content, which Bungie seems to struggle with considering all their pipeline changes.

Lightfall is something I find hard to recommend; Neomuna is an awesome local, and it has the classic hallmarks of a Destiny location, but it's severely crippled by it's lackluster story, with a campaign experience you can just get from Witch Queen. This is yet again another expansion that appeals to more hardcore players due to the raid and pinnacle drops, and less to new and casual players with Campaign and it's campaign experience. I'd only recommend this expansion to those that have a dedicated squad to play with, otherwise, just buy Witch Queen or Legacy Edition instead.

Original Review (March 4th, 2023):
Lightfall is incredibly strong in terms of gameplay and it's campaign experience, but it lacks severely in story during a very critical point during Destiny's narrative arc, which is a huge shame coming off the success of Witch Queen. Many narrative threads and plot points go unanswered or otherwise ignored in favor of showing off Strand, which is a huge disappointment given the story that was being built and set up over the course of Witch Queen's campaign and seasonal content.

I would not recommend this expansion to new players, and I find it very hard to recommend it for veterans either due to how much the game's narrative misses so hard. Final Shape has a lot to fill, and with only a year gap between its release, I am very worried over the quality of the series going forward.

After having more time to fully play through what this DLC has to offer, I can strongly affirm my original stance on this expansion; It has incredibly strong gameplay, probably the best we've gotten in a while, especially after the state that Witch Queen and it's subsequent seasons left the game in. Lightfall also comes with one of the best patrol spaces we've gotten since Forsaken, there are many events happening, not just Public Events, and I rarely find myself getting bored of exploring Neomuna. The campaign in terms of difficulty I found it to be a welcome challenge. Many people struggled with different sections of the campaign, and while I did struggle at points, I saw them as challenges to overcome, rather than faults in the game's balance or design; After all, *I* was the one who chose to play on Hard, so I feel it should be hard, especially since most encounters are pushovers in normal. Speaking of difficulty, it's very refreshing for almost everything in this game to be somewhat difficult and require thought again; The seasonal content is great, Neomuna always has tough enemies to fight, even when near or at the soft power cap, and Nightfalls, even at the lowest difficulty, are challenging again. Buildcrafting is now easier than ever, making it much more open to experimentation, while also allowing for much finer tuning of specific aspects of the mod system with how streamlined it all is. This does allow for any player to become jacked once they invest enough into armor, however, which has led to some questionable balance in PvE; Ability spam is still a problem I feel, maybe having some sort of system that scales the effectiveness of abilities based on how long they recharge for would be helpful? But then again, I'm not Bungie, I can't make these changes nor do I know how Destiny's shit wank engine works behind the scenes. Now all of this was discussing Gameplay and balance changes brought with Lightfall, which is by far the strongest reason to buy the expansion. However, if you were coming for a half decent story off the heels of Witch Queen; Don't bother. The story in this expansion ends rather anti-climatically and inconclusive, we have somehow slipped back into D1 era writing of setting up a lot of interesting plot details, but then choosing to not elaborate on any of it and blue balling the player. By the time the campaign is over, you don't know what the Macguffin is you're chasing, and this isn't helped by Post Campaign content either. This isn't mentioning the campaign's obsession with Strand; In Bungie's attempt to avoid Stasis 2 (Underwhelming Sub-Class, intense grind to get a whole Sub-Class, horrible balance), they made a campaign that focuses heavily on something that isn't the main story. The campaign as a result feels very crammed and half baked, practically forcing players interested in the story to wait until Final Shape, and who knows if that will even be worth waiting to see the conclusion for with how this expansion went. After Witch Queen, I was convinced Bungie had finally learned how to tell a story in Destiny's universe, something that Bungie for some reason has perpetually struggled with since Destiny's Launch, but this expansion has only taught me that Bungie seems to be very gameplay focused rather than an equal focus on story and gameplay, which wouldnt be an issue if Destiny didn't have such a heavy emphasis on it's narrative, and it has since it's launch. I am not asking for a Witch Queen 2, or even a Taken King 2, but just more consistency with Expansion content, which Bungie seems to struggle with considering all their pipeline changes. Lightfall is something I find hard to recommend; Neomuna is an awesome local, and it has the classic hallmarks of a Destiny location, but it's severely crippled by it's lackluster story, with a campaign experience you can just get from Witch Queen. This is yet again another expansion that appeals to more hardcore players due to the raid and pinnacle drops, and less to new and casual players with Campaign and it's campaign experience. I'd only recommend this expansion to those that have a dedicated squad to play with, otherwise, just buy Witch Queen or Legacy Edition instead. Original Review (March 4th, 2023): Lightfall is incredibly strong in terms of gameplay and it's campaign experience, but it lacks severely in story during a very critical point during Destiny's narrative arc, which is a huge shame coming off the success of Witch Queen. Many narrative threads and plot points go unanswered or otherwise ignored in favor of showing off Strand, which is a huge disappointment given the story that was being built and set up over the course of Witch Queen's campaign and seasonal content. I would not recommend this expansion to new players, and I find it very hard to recommend it for veterans either due to how much the game's narrative misses so hard. Final Shape has a lot to fill, and with only a year gap between its release, I am very worried over the quality of the series going forward.