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"Guy who leaves negative Steam review after ungodly hour count" is truly one of the strongest soldiers in modern gaming. They scare me. It's a practice that speaks of obsession, but also a level of expertise and familiarity you just can't fake: What do you say to someone who knows your game that well, and hates it? Anyway, I'm in awe of ArkaneArdvark78, who left a negative Steam review of Destiny 2 after 10,098.5 hours, then kept playing for another 157.8 hours.
I think the craziest part of this is that ArkaneArdvark78's review is extremely reasonable—shout out to Scott Smith, who's 8,000 hour negative review of Battlezone 98 ultimately won over PC Gamer news writer Joshua Wolens. ArcaneArdvark78 echoes sentiments I certainly felt during my piddly 700 pandemic-only hours of Destiny 2, as well as what I've heard from the community and PCG's own five figure lifers like brand director Tim Clark and UK editor-in-chief Phil Savage. I've reproduced ArkaneArdvark78's review here in screenshot and text form:
"First of all let me say this, I have been a loyal Destiny fan since it launched over 10 years ago. But that has changed with this new expansion. I have well over 10,000 hours between console and PC. With the Edge of Fate and the new gear tiers, character leveling and weapon tiers I have lost all interest in the game. What better way to offend your player base than telling them that all the armor and weapons that they have spent countless hours grinding towards is now useless.
"Unless you pour every waking moment you have to get the tier 5 gear you aren't maximizing your builds anymore. The Portal and the level grind of spending countless mind numbing hours grinding the same activity over and over and over to try to level up is a morale killer for the game.
"Bungie is so far removed from actually listening or understanding the player base it should be a major red flag. I can't even express the amount of disgust I have for this game after Edge of Fate released. I am done with this game. I don't think Bungie can bring it back to the point where I was excited to log in and run missions. Congratulations Bungie, you have lost another one."
Certainly heated, but not at all unfair or unnecessarily cruel, like you see in a lot of Steam reviews, regardless of hour count. There seems to be unanimous agreement that the Portal overhaul was a disaster. Even back in the relative golden age of The Witch Queen expansion, when I contemplated getting back into things, the thought of grinding pinnacle activities over and over to do actual fun stuff like raids and dungeons made me feel queasy.
ArkaneArdvark78 left this review last September, and time has only vindicated it further: Destiny 2 is being sunset, Destiny 3 is apparently MIA, and it's unclear if Marathon is big enough to sustain Bungie as it currently stands. They lost ArkaneArdvark78, and they lost the war.
As for ArkaneArdvark78's 157.8 hours post-scathing review, well, we've all been there I guess. Your friends ask you to hop on for some Nightfalls and one thing leads to another. That speaks to one of many small tragedies in Destiny 2's end of life: The many friendships it facilitated needing to find new outlets.
And hey, I can hardly judge: I still play Elden Ring Nightreign almost every day with PCG senior guides writer Sean Martin and contributor Tyler Colp. At least once a Depth 4 run, I say something along the lines of "I hate this game," "I hate all games," or "I'm glad we didn't put this on our 2025 game of the year list." I've only logged 382 hours, but I'm getting there.
