Dear Bungie Team, I don’t know how to start this. For nearly eleven years, ever since I got The Dark Below for my 14th birthday, Destiny, both Destiny 1 and later Destiny 2, has been [i]the[/i] go-to game that I play. In fact, for pretty much that entire time, it has been the [i]only[/i] game that I have played. As of the release of Edge of Fate, and more importantly, Update 9.0, I feel like it is no longer the game I fell in love with back in 2015 and continued falling in love with again and again with each new expansion. I’m not going to grow a massive ego or pretend like I’m the most special or most important person in the world. But I still have a voice, one that is already rarely heard because I rarely stand up for myself, and I am imploring you to hear me: If this is the way the game is going in the future, I’m not going to be a part of it. And that sucks. I’ve lost the only game I’ve ever loved. And I’ve loved it, truly loved it. Every single expansion and season, I have been through thick and thin. I’ve made new friends and played with old friends. I’ve put easily over 2,000 hours into the game across both titles and all major platforms. I’ve benefited the community at large by making tools for them to use that help new players understand how the game works and where to find things. I’ve bought every expansion the second it was released for purchase. I’ve gone triumph hunting and title hunting. I’ve sherpa’d blueberries through legendary campaigns and dungeons. When others were joking or being serious about the game being terrible, I was there to point out why and how it was fantastic. I’ve been through it all, and each time I’ve been excited more and more for what comes next. But not this time. Not anymore. I solo’d the legendary campaign on Day 1, a tradition I have done since they were introduced in The Witch Queen, and have always followed it up by completing the rest of the objectives after, playing with friends, and having fun. But this time, there was no sense of accomplishment, just… exhaustion. I went to orbit afterward and, for the first time, just felt hollow. I tried the new Solo Ops but only felt revolted. The best part about this is the story. The Edge of Fate's narrative was fantastic, and the Criticality mission was probably the highlight mission for me, barring the ending twist, which I thought was a great reveal. The new abilities are equally great and genuinely have a lot of merit. Throughout my first playthrough, I kept spotting things that I knew I was meant to come back to later with an upgraded ability, and made a note of them, excited to discover what secrets they held. Mostly, however, the rest of Edge of Fate and pretty much all of Update 9.0 were all dislikes. The gameplay was not the best. Matterspark is a great concept, but far too floaty and impossibly unforgiving for getting into tight spaces, especially in tense moments. Mattermorph is equally fun, but having your melee suddenly no longer work mid-combat with the build you carefully crafted around having a normal melee is jarring, and I found myself constantly expecting my normal melee when instead I would get the Mattermorph melee, and I wound up dying a lot to that. The flat text dialogue boxes make the game suddenly feel like an Aionian or Lodi dating simulator or a 2D RPG rather than the 3D FPS looter-shooter game Destiny is. If they were voiced, and yes, I know about the SAG-AFTRA strike and other voice actor issues, it might be less of a problem. The tiers are cool, but the new icons for items just feel off. The idea of it being more accessible to new players feels like it spits in their face by giving them far more options than previously available in the form of selectable activity modifiers. Now, I have a feeling the number of players who will run into decision fatigue and decision anxiety more quickly and be confused about which version of the activity they’re running is more than you’re anticipating. And the people who just got into the game with the free PS+ and Open Access, who just spent a week or a month learning how to navigate the game, have to relearn an entirely new system after just getting the hang of the old one. And then there’s the Portal and the Director. Why. Just, why. Why did you ditch the Director? It’s been an iconic part of the Destiny game since the beginning, and you’re just throwing it aside? For some boxes? Not even just put it off to the side, you -blam!- [i]grayscaled[/i] it. Unequivocally, I think this is by far the worst decision this game has ever made. Even outright getting rid of the Director, though I am [i]vehemently[/i] against that, would have been a better move than dragging it through a dumpster like you have. As I understand it from watching videos by Milo/MrRoflWaffles and Skarrow9, when you hosted the content creators for a preview of The Edge of Fate, there was a unanimous, or near-unanimous, agreement amongst them that the Director should not be retired, and yet it was anyway. I’m not stupid enough to foolishly believe that changes as a result of feedback like that can be made with the flip of a switch or so immediately. My dad has done software work for almost my entire life. I [i]know[/i] coding is a mess. But I’ve heard and seen [i]nothing[/i] from official channels in any form that says that that feedback from the content creators, or really any feedback from them that was negative, to be honest, was taken into consideration or even heard. Destiny has always been criticized for many things. But it has never been criticized for its gunplay, its sound, or its art design. These three have been so consistently good, so consistently top-tier, that it has never been a question of “I wonder if the new expansion will look bad?” or “I wonder if the new soundtrack is going to be good?” because it is automatically assumed that they will be of the highest quality. But now I’m criticizing the art design choice of foisting boring boxes with no soul that look like a mobile game menu in the worst way possible in the form of the Portal upon players, over keeping the genuine masterpiece I would gladly buy and hang on a wall in the form of the Director planet screen. And if I’m starting to criticize the art design, I’m worried that I'm going to have to start criticizing the gunplay and the sound soon as well. I’d pay almost any price to bring back the game that I loved. I don’t care if expansions are even raised to the multiple hundreds in price if it means they stay [i]Destiny[/i]. The changes made alongside The Edge of Fate in Update 9.0 are not Destiny. If you hear nothing else that I have said, hear that. Please tell me when/if my beloved game is going to come back; otherwise, I’m uninstalling for good. Truly heartbroken, squid