Well, you were going to see some fruits of the PlayStation Bungie acquisition over time, and once again we have another pairing of Destiny 2 content with the monthly PlayStation Plus games. This time, however, it’s a way for players to grab an entire subclass ahead of the launch of The Final Shape.

The May PlayStation Plus games are EA Sports FC 24, Ghostrunner 2, Tunic and Destiny 2: Lightfall. That means players can claim Lightfall on PlayStation and if they complete the Strand unlock quest/material farm, they can have the subclass indefinitely. But only on PlayStation, as that will not transfer to other platforms like PC unless you own Lightfall there as well.

Of course Lightfall is…not a good expansion. Well, it’s complicated. Lightfall has easily the worst story of any expansion in Destiny’s series history. It’s utter nonsense that feels like it was concocted to put something in the gap between Witch Queen and Final Shape that didn’t actually need to be there. Do not expect to figure out what “The Veil” is by the end if you’re just starting, I’ll tell you that. And half the missions are just Strand training exercises.

However, playing the expansion is not that bad, thanks to the challenging-but-fun Legend difficulty that was first utilized in Witch Queen. It makes campaign playthroughs more fun and the structure of these missions are pretty good, even if the story is not. I maintain Shadowkeep is overall Destiny 2’s worst expansion, given how limited in scope it was (and that wasn’t a great story either), but Lightfall did crater the playercount and revenue of the game for this entire year because of its poor reception.

But Strand? Strand is something else, and everyone likes Strand. As it stands, some of the most powerful builds in the game are on Strand subclasses, namely Banner of War, melee-based Titan, and Unraveling, Threading Warlock. Hunter is…good, though I haven’t clicked with any wild builds with it lately. The point being, it is absolutely a good idea to add Strand in your arsenal, and actually it’s even more important than before since The Final Shape is adding the new Prismatic subclass where you will be able to pair Strand with other elements.

Stasis is the other, expansion-mandated subclass which requires Beyond Light to unlock. But I would consider Stasis less useful in Strand in its current form, even as larger reworks to it may be coming with The Final Shape, as previously promised. The point being, claim Lightfall, get Strand, perhaps mute all the dialogue along the way.

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