What you need to know
- Exactly one month ahead of the launch of Destiny 2: The Final Shape DLC, nearly all of the game’s other major expansions have been made available to play for free with “Expansion Open Access” until June 3 — four days before The Final Shape’s June 7 release.
- These include the Shadowkeep, Beyond Light, and The Witch Queen expansions, along with their story campaigns, Exotic quests, strikes, raids, and gear. You’ll be able to keep the gear you earn after Open Access ends, though you won’t be able to use Beyond Light’s Stasis subclass anymore unless you buy that DLC specifically.
- The only major expansion that isn’t included in Open Access is Destiny 2: Lightfall, which released in 2023 and had a very negative reputation. Though its Strand subclasses are great, the rest of the DLC is widely considered to be very disappointing. You can claim it during May if you’re a PlayStation Plus member, though.
- Minor DLCs like the 30th Anniversary Pack and the Forsaken Pack aren’t included in Expansion Open Access either, so be aware of that.
As I write this, Destiny 2’s huge The Final Shape DLC — the final chapter in the game’s decade-long “Light and Darkness Saga” that began with the original 2014 shooter — is exactly one month away from its planned release on June 7. With a climactic story that’ll take players inside the Traveler itself, a wild Prismatic subclass that allows you to combine Light and Darkness powers, plenty of loot to chase, and more, it looks to be the biggest and boldest expansion in Destiny’s history.
Excitement for it has been building steadily in recent months, drawing new and returning players alike to the space fantasy FPS. An issue for newcomers, though, is that Destiny 2 is quite expensive to get into since all of its older expansions still cost money. From now until June 3, though, you can play through nearly all of them for free thanks to “Expansion Open Access,” which was announced in a new trailer on Tuesday by developer Bungie (honestly, Shadowkeep and Beyond Light should be free by now anyway since they’re several years old, but I digress).
Available content includes everything from 2019’s Shadowkeep, 2020’s Beyond Light, and 2022’s The Witch Queen, including story campaign missions, Exotic quests and gear, strikes (three-player levels), raids (challenging six-player endgame missions), and more. Once you’re in-game, all of this should be accessible.
Notably, you’ll get to keep all the gear you earn while playing through these DLCs even if you don’t purchase them before this Open Access period ends, giving you a chance to build up a good arsenal before confronting the Witness in The Final Shape. One thing you won’t get to keep access to, however, are Beyond Light’s Stasis subclasses. For that reason, I recommend buying Beyond Light if you can (it’s $19.99, but goes on sale often), especially since Stasis can be very powerful with the right build.
Alongside minor DLCs like the 30th Anniversary Pack and the Forsaken Pack, the one story expansion that isn’t included in Open Access is Destiny 2: Lightfall — but honestly, it’s not worth the $29.99 it costs. Don’t get me wrong, the Strand subclasses it added are pretty awesome, but they’re not essentials unless you’re a hardcore endgame player (and if that’s you, you probably already own the DLC, anyway). Even if you are, you’ll be just fine with the “vanilla” Solar, Arc, and Void subclasses.
Compared to Destiny 2’s other expansions, Lightfall has what has to be the worst core narrative since the abysmal (and now-sunset) Curse of Osiris and Warmind add-ons, along with an extremely boring raid in the Root of Nightmares. The loot from its (bland) Neomuna patrol space is solid and some of its post-launch story dialogue is actually pretty good, but you can look up the latter in YouTube videos, and overall, I just can’t bring myself to recommend it unless it’s discounted.
Something important to note is that Lightfall, along with access to all its follow-up seasonal story and gameplay content from 2023-24, is available for PlayStation players to claim without a purchase in May if they have a PlayStation Plus membership. Take advantage of that, if you can; it costs $99.99 to get the DLC and its seasons otherwise, and that’s absolutely not worth it since Lightfall’s seasonal content will leave Destiny 2 when The Final Shape launches in June.
Thanks to Destiny 2’s Expansion Open Access, now is definitely the time to get started with the game if you’re interested in jumping in ahead of The Final Shape. The Witch Queen, Beyond Light, and especially Shadowkeep aren’t perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but for the rock bottom price of $0, their campaigns — The Witch Queen’s, in particular — are a good time. Along with the “New Light” free-to-play story missions and the in-game Timeline feature, they’ll also help you get up to speed on what’s going actually going on in Bungie’s universe. Several of their Exotic quests are great, too, and all three DLCs have enjoyable raids.
There’s also Destiny 2’s Into the Light update to enjoy, which is entirely free-to-play and just got its final major batch of content with today’s weekly reset. It’s added an awesome PvE wave defense mode called Onslaught, 12 special refreshed “BRAVE” weapons to chase, reprised versions of the fan-favorite Whisper and Zero Hour Exotic missions, three new PvP maps, and a raid boss gauntlet called Pantheon that overhauls popular raid encounters with some new twists. It, along with the official reveal of The Final Shape’s Prismatic subclass, doubled the game’s player count in early April.
Destiny 2 is one of the best Xbox games and best PC games for fans of multiplayer and looter shooters, and The Final Shape — the final expansion in the Light and Darkness Saga — looks to be the biggest DLC that Bungie’s popular live service game has ever gotten. Notably, it’s available to preorder now, and the PC version is on sale for a small discount.
