With the next chapter of Destiny 2 less than a few weeks away, developer Bungie briefly lifted the neon-colored veil around the Lightfall expansion. Last week, I and other members of the press got a chance to experience a hands-off preview of this expansion. This included a walkthrough of a single campaign mission, a short Q&A, and a brief breakdown of the various systems arriving on February 28th. However, one of the coolest additions shown off was the new Destiny 2 destination on Neptune, the city of Neomuna.
It’s a massive city that seems to easily be around the size of either the Moon or Savathun’s Throne World. Roads snake and twist past large skyscrapers and brightly-illuminated structures that make the city feel wildly different that any other destination. There’s a ton of verticality to each space, giving players a lot more freedom to explore and engage with enemies in unique ways. Neomuna feels as if it’s pulling inspiration from Bungie’s past games such as Halo ODST, as the quiet, foreboding streets erupt into frenzied combat. However, there is an odd emptiness to Neomuna, as the demo we were shown didn’t really have a ton of enemies roaming around.
Similar to Season of the Haunted’s Leviathan, players will be facing tougher foes while roaming on patrol. Bungie didn’t elaborate if this means our Light will be permanently capped, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the case. We also know that Neomuna will feature a new, non-Public Event activity that is more akin to Escalation Protocol. We didn’t get to see the mode for ourselves, Bungie explained in the preview that this activity is designed for a minimum of 6 players and will be marked on the HUD by a pink diamond.
Additionally, Patrols can be accessed by speaking to the various citizens of Neomuna instead of just interacting with a beacon staked into the ground. These civilians will appear as holograms, with cyan-colored ones offering Patrols and yellow ones just roaming around the city as NPCs. One curious feature of Neomuna that wasn’t addressed was a radio news broadcast talking about the invasion when the player was driving around on their Sparrow. Dubbed “Neomuna Civil News,” the anchor briefly discussed the war taking place in the city. Unfortunately, we don’t know if this will change as the story progresses or if getting news reports while zipping around Neomuna will be a regular occurrence.
Of course, the coolest addition of Neomuna is how players will interact with it when using the Strand subclass and its grappling hook ability. While you can use this new traversal feature anywhere, Neomuna features these floating Strand orbs that will instantly refresh your grapple upon latching onto them. Since the grapple is tied to your grenade, these grapple points will allow players to swing through the city with relative ease. Finally, Neomuna will offer a small quality of life change by adding both a Mailbox and Vault kiosk next to the Destination vendor. This allows you to quickly change your gear or claim all those Legendary Engrams you didn’t bother picking up without going to the H.E.L.M. or Tower.
Neomuna and Destiny 2’s Lightfall expansion will go live on February 28th for all available platforms.
