Iron Banter: This Week In Destiny 2 - Grappling With Gambit

gamespot.com:

Just about every week brings something new to Destiny 2, whether it's story beats, new activities, or interesting new combinations of elements that let players devastate each other in the Crucible. Iron Banter is our weekly look at what's going on in the world of Destiny and a rundown of what's drawing our attention across the solar system.

The launch of The Witch Queen also saw Bungie making a series of adjustments to Gambit, a mode the studio had released way back with the Forsaken expansion. I've always found Gambit to be a really interesting addition to Destiny 2, and one of the things most unique about the game. It's a Destiny take on what might be a horde mode in other games, where you take on waves of enemies, but it's structured to be more strategic. Gambit is a mode I've always really liked--at least, on paper.

I've leaned into Gambit a little more with the recent addition of the new Labs feature, which makes some slight tweaks to the formula, seemingly both to add some variety and to gather player data for Bungie to make greater changes down the line. And I find I'm still torn on it. I like Gambit as an idea, but it still isn't quite as compelling as I wish it was.

First, let's talk about what Gambit does right, and how the new changes continue to improve it. Gambit succeeds with a single brilliant idea: player versus environment versus player. Instead of being content where you play alone or with friends against AI enemies, or being a straight arena shooter where you play against other humans, it melds the two formulas together. You're on a team of four players, fighting AI enemies, but competing against another team of humans. Most of the time, the mode is just a race to kill as many enemies as you can as