What’s Up With Destiny 2’s Controversial Final Shape Raid Date?

Destiny 2’s Final Shape raid is being hyped up as one of the biggest moments in the series’ history, one where we will face down The Witness at last, though whether that is the final stand for the character remains to be seen.

Now, Bungie has announced the raid date for The Final Shape, which is a little too close for comfort for some to the release date of the expansion itself. The expansion launches on Tuesday, June 4. The raid release date is Friday, June 7 at 10 AM PT, just three days later.

It’s true that raids arrive in contest mode now, so there is no need to go on a crazy grind to maximize your power like we saw in the Last Wish days, where the main issue for all teams was simply being underleveled.

However, many players are still not happy about this given that you do need to grind out different things. That may be some aspects of the seasonal artifact, though in this case I’m not sure we know for sure if there still is a seasonal artifact, given that this is the last season.

But more pressingly, I’m hearing concern about the new Prismatic subclass and its exotic class item that can roll with random exotic perks, and whether some will land great RNG for rolls of that before the raid. If it’s even out before the raid, which we don’t know.

Larger questions loom about Prismatic in general, as it would seem to have so many wacky interactions that it could throw the raid race into total chaos, but no doubt there will be a list of disabled items or potentially even abilities for the raid race to try and curb that.

Why is this so close? Why not just do it further out like other races?

My best guess here is that there’s a story component to this, as indications are there will be a separate event after the raid that involves all community members, not just the 5-10% attempting a day one raid clear, fighting The Witness in some form or another. And The Witness needs to be defeated and the Light and Darkness saga ended so Destiny 2 can quickly move into its first episode, the Vex-focused Echoes, which is a different format than past expansions.

Previously, we usually have a smaller season attached to an expansion’s release that has content through the season that runs parallel to the campaign story. Here, the Light and Darkness saga will be over, probably with some big, world-changing events, and now Episodes begin, standalone stories that will yes, be affected by the events of The Final Shape, but it will be different than the way seasons have previously worked. So I think Bungie wants to start that as soon as possible, which requires the raid to be cleared and the final Final Shape moments, whatever those are, to happen. There could still be longer term Final Shape content that crops up down the road, if you’ve say, just bought that expansion but not the episodes, but it won’t be like a full season of content unless you have Echoes.

So, that’s why the raid is early, is my guess. That may prove dramatic, but I understand why they’re doing it, at least.

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