The crossover between Destiny 2 and Assassin’s Creed Valhalla went live in both games on Tuesday, December 6th.
This crossover is limited to paid items, which in the case of Destiny are purely cosmetic in nature.
In Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, players can purchase two separate Destiny 2 packs. There’s a Destiny 2 Weapons Pack, which cost 1400 Helix Credits which is $14. This pack includes unique weapons with unique perks.
- Dawnblade Sword – A solar projectile is launched towards your locked target on a heavy attack after activating the Melee Fire Strike ability.
- Deadly Edge Scythe – Increases Axe Fury damage. Axe Fury hits creates a flash-freeze blast that deals area damage.
- Sentinel Shield – Bash an emey with your shield on the first heavy combo attack.
- Arcstrider Spear – The spear is imbued with Arc energy, dealing bonus damage on every hit.
These are cool weapons, ripped straight out of Destiny 2, with unique perks that are based on Destiny’s elements; solar, stasis, void and arc.
Is it worth $14 on a game that’s not getting any more content and no new game plus? Probably not, but at least thought went into it. They look the part; they act the part.
For 2000 Helix Credits, or $20, Valhalla players can get the Destiny 2 Character Pack.
Get this, this pack includes two complete armor sets ripped straight out of Destiny 2. You can transform Eivor in either Lord Shaxx or Saint-14, or make Shaxx wear the Helm of Saint-14, whatever you want to do.
Not only is the armor cosmetic, you can transmog it onto the armor pieces that you like and fit your build, but they also have their own unique set bonus.
- Saint-14 Set will increase Armor and Evasion when equipped (two pieces), and reduce damage received by 20% when wearing the full five pieces.
- Lord Shaxx set will increase Heavy Damage and Light Damage when equipped (two pieces) and add some of your armor to your Melee Damage and Ranged Damage when full five pieces are equipped.
Two complete armor sets that you can use with unique set perks, or transmog onto your favorite gear.
But the pack also comes with two weapons, a mount, and a raven.
Thorn Sword – Killing a poisoned enemy will drop a remnant that increases Poison Damage when absorded.
Gjallarhorn Sword – A rocket is launched towards your locked target after activating the Vengeance of Thor ability.
The mount is the Gjallahorn Wolf, and the raven is the Gjallahorn Raven.
All in all, an awesome pack of functional items to use in game, and as it is a third person game, you can see your armor. Lord Shaxx is running around as a Viking. That’s cool.
$20 for that is fair. I bought it. Won’t buy the other Weapons pack. But if you wanted all of the Destiny 2 themed items, that’s $34. Not bad at all when compared to what’s coming.
Now let’s look at the Destiny side of things, and what Destiny 2 players can get.
The Warlock chest, front and center, is the only ornament that screams Assassin’s Creed.
Ubisoft did a great job. Items ripped straight out of Destiny 2 with thought and care put into them. Did Bungie do the same?
Bungie took inspiration from three different Assassin’s Creed games for their legendary armor ornaments. Hunter’s get a set inspired by Odyssey. Warlock’s get a set inspired by Altair. Titans get a set inspired by Valhalla.
Hunters are stealthy, agile warriors throwing knives or void bows while wearing stylish capes and hoods. So, did they get armor based on Ezio, Altair, Connor, or Edward Kenway? Of course not, would make too much sense. They get Spartan inspired set that doesn’t particularly scream Assassins Creed.
Warlocks get the only armor set that looks like Assassin’s Creed, but the best piece of the ornament is the chest piece, which if you want to rock it means you can’t use any of the exotic chest pieces (of which all three classes have some really good exotic chest pieces).
That last part is a big problem. If you want to be functional and with a complete build, you cannot use the entire five-piece ornament set. Because in Destiny 2, you can’t put your universal ornaments on exotic pieces.
Bungie would say that is because they want players to be able to look at other Guardians in the Crucible and know what exotic they’re using. A joke when most people are just trying to get a kill, not take time to analyze what exotic the person they’re shooting at might be wearing.
That alone kills most of my interest. I tend to use exotic chest pieces the most, particularly on my Hunter which I main. The Spartan armor doesn’t exactly mesh well with Omnioculus, Sixth Coyote, Dragon’s Shadow, Gyrafalcon’s Hauberk, etc.
The other draw back, and it’s an even bigger one, is that Bungie wants payers to dish out 2000 Silver (or $20) for the ornament set. That’s not all three sets, that’s for one classes set. If you want to have the Assassin’s Creed inspired (vaguely) set for each class, that’s $60. We’re already just about double the cost of all the functional, fully usable Destiny 2 items in Valhalla.
For 2500 Silver, or $25, (on “sale” from 2800 Silver) Destiny 2 players can get a bundle of an Assassin’s Creed inspired exotic Ghost Shell, Sparrow and Ship. The Ghost shell looks like a Piece of Eden, cool. Neither the ship nor the sparrow scream Assassin’s Creed. Without the names, you can look at the mount and raven in Valhalla and see that’s clearly Destiny 2’s Gjallarhorn based.
The only time you see your Ghost in Destiny 2 is during cutscenes where it talks for you, when you’re dead and waiting to be revived, or when you manually put it up (to get some information, not look at your ghost). The ship, visible while you’re in orbit or flying to a destination.
This useless junk of non-gameplay-based items that don’t scream Assassins Creed, Bungie thinks is worth $25.
Then there’s a hidden blade Finisher, which is a pretty quick animation when you finish a low health target with a hidden blade assassination, that Bungie is charging 1000 Silver for.
If you’re a Destiny 2 player, who likes the Assassin’s Creed franchise like I do (Destiny 2 is my most played game, Assassin’s Creed is my favorite franchise), then Bungie thinks their loosely inspired Assassin’s Creed purely cosmetic items are worth a total of $95.
Keep in mind that despite not being able to put the ornament on an exotic piece, Destiny 2 is a first-person shooter. The only time you’ll ever see the armor on your character is when you’re in your inventory, in a social space, using a sword, or emoting.
$20 for an armor ornament set that you don’t see when playing the game and probably won’t be a complete set on anyway because of wearing an exotic. Compare that to two fully functional armor sets, visible while playing the game, two unique weapons, a mount and a raven (which you can control and fly around as) for the same damn price.
$95 is four dollars less than what Bungie wants players to shell out for Lightfall, four seasons, and the next dungeon pass. It’s $25 more than buying a new game like say God of War Ragnarok.
This in a season where Bungie couldn’t even be assed to make one measly new exotic armor piece per character.
I’ve spent hundreds of dollars on Destiny 2, and hundreds on Destiny before that, and the game has only gotten worse. Now they want $95 for lazy, half-assed and barely Assassin’s Creed inspired cosmetics that you’ll rarely see and have zero gameplay impact.
This would be bad microtransactions in a truly free-to-play game. In a game that demands as much money as Destiny 2 does to stay relevant, this is downright embarrassing and disgusting.
It would be maybe a little different if all the items were absolute knockouts and we saw tangible improvements in the game due to Eververse sales. But the game gets worse, we get less content, and they want to charge more for content that was free or included in a season/expansion (talking about the $20 dungeon pass).
What exactly does the money made from Eververse sales do for the game? It clearly hasn’t gone towards making it better or making cool new content (like say secret missions like Whisper or Zero Hour).
The Assassin’s Creed inspired items in Destiny 2 are a ripoff and a joke. Bungie should be ashamed; Ubisoft should feel slighted. They took care with the Destiny items in their game and offered them up at a reasonable price. Bungie produced useless crap and got extremely greedy with it.