The end of forever

On May 21, Bungie announced that it will be making a final update to Destiny 2. Contrary to prior plans, this coming Tuesday, June 9, will mark the end of the franchise’s 12-year run. The servers will remain online until further notice, just as they have for Destiny, but the game therein—the world, the characters and the dangling threads of their stories, the gear, the systems, the very motion of the stars and the planets arrayed beneath them—all of that will be rendered unto stasis. A clockwork universe wound up one last time and left to loop.

When I read this, my day came to a stop. I don’t remember what I was in the middle of doing, but I had to pause and sit with this news. In some regard, I have been sitting with it for the past 2 weeks.

I have for some time now been threatening to write a retrospective on my time playing Destiny, and the truth is it’s already been more than a year since I last played. If there is any time to write my Guardian’s epitaph, it is now.

Only… I still don’t know what to say. I don’t have an elegant, articulate synopsis of what 10 years of playing Destiny meant to me.

After all this time, all I have are memories.

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Thick as Thieves

A screenshot from Elden Ring Nightreign. Three players fly off into the mist, held aloft by spectral birds.

Having proclaimed that 2025 was The Year of Games That Are Co-op and/or Action and/or Rogue-lite (scroll to the section on Risk of Rain 2 if you missed it), the time has come to look back and evaluate some of the games from 2025 that fall under that heading.

As a note: I determine whether something is an action game by asking “Do you have fine control over a character’s movement, and does that movement affect your chance of success?” If yes, it’s an action game.

As for what a rogue-lite is, that’s really a matter of vibes. Is the game run-based? Are you frequently given a choice of 2 or 4 but usually 3 things? Do you collect something that you can spend to become stronger on future runs? If yes, it’s probably a rogue-lite.

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Wish upon a wall

Early in Hollow Knight: Silksong, someone asks for your help building a bridge.

The bug asking for aid is called Flick, the resident fixer of Bone Bottom, a town in the depths of Pharloom. A capable craftsman, he doesn’t require practical help from you, instead asking for raw materials—shell shards, mined from the environment or gathered from fallen bugs along your path.

In the kingdom of Pharloom, there’s a custom of posting requests like Flick’s to wishwalls. The bugs of this land, many of whom are on a pilgrimage to the sacred Citadel atop the realm, leave their wishes on the board and hold onto faith that someone else will come along and make them come true.

Flick’s wish is called “A Lifesaving Bridge.” He means to build this bridge across a pit near the edge of town, one that many a pilgrim has tumbled into. You too have run afoul of this fissure, plummeting into it at the game’s outset.

(I’ll keep the details vague, but there are some spoilers for the game in this post.)

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Sur l’art impossible

“Great art is both window and mirror… whether it’s your mask or theirs.”

– The Mask Keeper

Recto

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has me feeling conflicted.

Befitting its name, Sandfall Interactive’s debut title is a game of contrasts. There are many bright spots. There are also some not-so-bright spots. I want to quickly cover both sides, and I might touch on some mechanical specifics while doing so, but I’m not going in depth on the story other than to say…

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