Destiny 2fans have speculated for a while that Gambit, the combined PvE/PvP multiplayer activity introduced in 2018’sForsakenexpansion, and Gambit Prime, the more competitive version released in Season of the Drifter,would eventually be consolidated into one mode(which, followingDestinynaming convention, could be “Gambit Perfected”). Alas, Bungie recently confirmed that this would be the case, with the new version of Gambit taking cues from both Prime and the original.
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While many players have grown weary of Gambit mainly due to constant invasions and excessive mote drain, the most devoted Gambit Prime players are sad to see their beloved game mode go.
10Stay: Taken Mods Are Leaving
One of the biggest balance issues with Prime is that not everyone has access to Taken armor mods (namely, Taken Armaments, which provides heavy ammo from grenade kills on Taken enemies) due to them only being accessible as a random drop from the secret chests in the Last Wish raid.
Taken mods are extremely powerful in Gambit Prime since all enemies in the Primeval phase, as well as blockers in the motes phase, are Taken, giving tons of benefit to those with the mods equipped. However, witharmor sunsetting on the horizon, Taken mods likely won’t be usable by Fall 2021, since only Last Wish and Scourge of the Past armor will take them whenBeyond Lightarrives in November, and these armor sets are being sunset the following year. Since invasions takePower Level into account in Prime, sunset armor won’t be viable and thus Taken mods will effectively be gone from the mode.
9Go: Less In-Game Clutter
Tons of content, including 4 entire planets/moons and 3 seasons worth of content, are being rotated out into theDestiny Content Vault whenBeyond Lightdrops.
The main reasons are to reduce the game file size, which has been steadily approachingModern Warfarelevels throughout the past year, and also to streamline new content drops for Bungie, since debugging and game testing requires them to make sure every weapon works in every location and mode. Consolidating Prime and original Gambit helps reduce the amount of content in-game and opens up Bungie to potentiallyintroduce new content faster.
8Stay: Unique Roles And Armor
What makes Prime truly stand apart from regular Gambit is the armor, which grants players an “aura” if they have all 5 armor pieces equipped for a specific role. Players canacquire specialized armorfrom Prime’s companion horde mode, Reckoning, and bring the armor into Gambit to gain unique perks.
Collectors are best equipped to collect and deposit motes, Reapers are tasked with quickly taking down enemy waves, Invaders gain distinct advantages when invading the other team, and Sentries are specialized to counter Invaders and Taken blockers. Experimenting with the different roles is loads of fun, and having a coordinated fireteam with one player in each role is Prime at its best.
7Go: Better For Casual Fanbase
On the flip side, facing off against a fully coordinated team with Prime armor as a casual player on a matchmade team is not a whole lot of fun. Steamrolling an uncoordinated team without the same armor perks or Taken mods may seem fun at first, but it is inherently unfair, and even then most players like a challenge in competitive multiplayer modes.
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WithDestiny 2goingfree-to-play withNew Light, the casual fanbase is growing and Bungie doesn’t want to do anything that would turn new players off to the game. Regular Gambit doesn’t have as much asymmetry as Prime does, and in this way is better for the average player.
6Stay: Reckoning
Prime’s companion mode, Reckoning, is also going away with Prime as it will lose its main purpose, which is to reward players with role-specific armor to take back into Prime.
While Reckoning was notoriously difficult when it first launched especially when matchmaking, it has become one of the most fun modes to farm kills in (say, for completing Exotic weapon catalyst requirements) since players are now well above therecommended Power Level. There are no other game modes that feed off of each other like Reckoning and Prime, andDestinywill lose that novelty when bothmodes go into the DCV.
5Go: Too Many Invasions
In theory, Prime matches should feel a lot faster than regular Gambit considering they’re only 1 round long instead of best 2 out of 3.
However, due to multiple invasions in the mote phase where Invaders can drain motes from the bank and constant invasions during the Primeval phase with every Invader kill healing the Primeval, Prime matches tend to feel like a slog. Bungie is fixing this in the next iteration of Gambit by doubling the minimum time between invasions, which will be a welcome balance feature to most players.
4Stay: Remove Matchmaking
Gambit Prime should never have had matchmaking. Similar to other pinnacle endgame activities like dungeons, raids, andTrials of Osiris, Prime simply requires too much coordination to make matchmaking viable. This is arguably the main reason why so many players soured on Gambit, as popular opinion largely shifted between the time Gambit initially launched and after Prime made its season-long debut.
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Having a non-matchmade mode in Prime and a more casual-friendly mode in regular Gambit would strike a perfect balance and make all types of players happy.
3Go: United Gambit Community
Among all the uncertainty of whether one Gambit mode would “win” or if Bungie would consolidate the modes into a sort of best-of playlist, factions have formed with sides proposing which mode should stay, or which should feature more heavily in Gambit’s final form.
With Prime leaving, Gambit players will be forced to be united in one common game mode. This could help shift popular opinion back in Gambit’s favor in theDestinycommunity.
2Stay: “Reckoner” Seal/Title Chase
This point could very easily fit into either the “stay” or “go” category. The seal and title chase for “Reckoner” requires an absurd amount of Gambit Prime and Reckoning, with some of the most arduous tasks being to kill 50 high-value targets with the Reaper aura and to deposit at least 50 motes in a single match 15 times with the Collector aura.
For Gambit fans, this is one of the best chases in the game, similar to how the most devoted endgame PvE players can chase the “Enlightened” or “Rivensbane” seals/titles by accomplishing difficult feats in raids. The rarest title in the game, “Reckoner” will only become rarerwhen it enters the DCV with Prime.
1Go: Stasis
Many Destiny2players are already worried about what kinds of balance issuesStasis, the new element being introduced inBeyond Light, will bring to the game. Crucible is already “too fast” for many players' liking with many one-shot weapons like shotguns, snipers, and The Mountaintop special grenade launcher.
Now Bungie is introducing subclasses that allow players to freeze other players with abilities, thus effectively killing them in one shot as long as they can follow up with their weapons. With Prime providing many opportunities for PvP invasions, the game mode may be too difficult to balance around Stasis.
