And today will end the Heavy Metal event, with players’ reactions being … across the spectrum. The new time-limited mode pitched the Guardians into explosive clashes between tanks, and many were not happy about how things came out. Some were calling it slow and boring, if not outright frustrating. Others just grinded through the whole thing and earned their rewards before the clock ran down.
Should we take a little trip down Heavy Metal Lane? For those players who may have missed it or just decided not to bother with it, the mode warred here in great PvP brawls inside giant-mech suits and vehicles. It was supposed to be a thick, vehicle-oriented confrontation that Destiny fans reminisced about from Combined Arms in Destiny 1. But a large swath of the community felt otherwise.
A consensus of complaints? The pace. “If these Brigs could actually move fast… and you could use your jetpack… this might be fun,” one disgruntled Guardian tweeted. Some said it was slow and clunky until time was called on a match. Others likened the event to past ones negatively, like Sparrow Racing League (SRL), which fans have been begging Bungie to restore, seriously, for years.
From there, spontaneity just got worse with the timing. Heavy Metal lasted a week, and for what was to be 15 ranks of grind to unlock the exclusive sparrow, that wasn’t enough time for many players. “1 week is not enough time to do 15 ranks for most people,” one player said, “That’s a lot of time, a lot of time people don’t have.” Negative feedback was the order of the day for those that did put in the time- the reward in the sparrow was considered really underwhelming, with one player outright saying: “the sparrow absolutely sucks.”
And there were some that didn’t hate it all. Some found the mode a nice nostalgia kick in the pants, reminding them of the combined arms of Destiny 1. Others were just enjoying the absurdity of interior tank trick shots: “Tanks >> simply for trickshot purposes,” one player said, posting a clip of a crazy 360 kill. A few players even ran through the event just in days. “I finished in 2 days,” said one player. “If you are good at the mode it is very easy.”
Still, the main takeaway from Heavy Metal could be a realization about how FOMO (fear of missing out) affects Destiny 2 in general. By now, this game has had plenty of limited-time events, but when one ends up being this divisive, it really makes you wonder-wouldn’t it be better to keep the mode around longer? Or better yet, bring back a mode like SRL that the fanbase almost never has anything negative to say about, instead of tossing out something that didn’t sit well with a sizable chunk of that fanbase?
With the sun setting on Heavy Metal, an ongoing discussion continues about Destiny 2 event design. Some players have their eyes on the future, with hopes of Bungie listening. The rest? Just glad to move aside.
Did you get into Heavy Metal? Loved it? Hated it? Or completely ignored it? Well, today is the last time to partake in it-if you have the patience.
