Destiny 2 players left disappointed by "underwhelming" Vex Offensive: Final Assault event

Destiny 2 players have been left disappointed by the Vex Offensive event, after community hype built the 'Final Assault' up to be something more than Bungie actually had planned behind the scenes.

Before the release of Shadowkeep and Season of the Undying, Bungie released a detailed roadmap of all the content that would be released over the 2 and a half months that the season would take place. Players soon took notice of the final content drop of the season titled “Vex Offensive: Final Assault”.  The community began to speculate that it would be the return of ‘The Undying Mind’ from Destiny 1, which was later confirmed by Bungie, which sparked significant excitement over the possibilities of returning mechanics and weapons.

Players were expecting a grand conclusion to the Vex Offensive event, especially since the event will be discontinued once the season ends, but instead, it all fell a little flat.

Why Final Assault fell so flat

The Undying Mind was featured as a strike boss in Destiny 1 that had the small possibility of dropping the much sought after Hand Cannon Imago Loop on defeat. Imago Loop gained popularity as it was almost a carbon copy of one of the most beloved weapons from the Vault of Glass raid, Fatebringer, only minus the Arc damage.

After Fatebringer was left at Year 1 power levels and made obsolete, the Imago Loop became the next best thing. With the return of The Undying Mind, it’s no real surprise that the community began to wonder if the Imago Loop would be returning with Destiny 2 perks but sadly this is not the case. In fact, Final Offensive introduces no new loot at all to the Vex Offensive which begs the question: Why should we even play this mode?

The most egregious issue with Final Assault is that the entire Vex Offensive activity plays out largely the same. All encounters leading up to the final boss are exactly the same as before with the same ‘Kill Vex’ and ‘Destroy Oracles’ objectives that had already become stale after only a few runs through the activity.

The only small change is during the final encounter where instead of squaring off against Crotheon the fireteam is instead up against The Undying Mind. The mechanics of the fight have seen no changes with the fireteam still needing to eliminate the Vex Minotaurs to obtain a Vex Cranium to then take down the bosses shields and start the damage phase.

Even the portal that Ikora has been building in the Tower over the last month was largely insignificant. Players were expecting some kind of event involving the portal, possibly a Vex counter-invasion into the Tower but instead, all it is used for is teleporting The Undying Mind into the boss arena in Vex Offensive.

Guardians annoyed by Final Assault release

After the Final Assault release day, Guardians flooded onto social media to air their grievances over the event.

One player, '101perry,' dubbed the event "underwhelming" and compared it to similar challenges in the past.

"Hate to break it to people, but it's literally the exact same thing we've been doing already in VO, but the boss has changed to a weaker Hydra," they said.

Numerous others also chimed in with their thoughts with negative reviews.

“I may be nitpicking, but I was at least hoping for different mechanics instead of the craniums to take down the shields. It’s literally the same exact thing we've been doing since the beginning of the season, but a different look on the boss," said GooeyGunk, while kcamnodb told Bungie "if you're going to time gate content to release 7 weeks after the DLC dropped at least make it more difficult. Most people who are interested in this are well over 950 now with the artifact. This should have been a 980 activity with a pinnacle attached."

Bungie responds to the criticism

So it seems like Vex Offensive: Final Assault was a major bust according to the community but Bungie themselves chimed in on the above Reddit thread to gather feedback. Bungie community manager Chris ‘Cozmo23’ Shannon posted:

“Sorry you found it disappointing," Cozmo said. "We'll pass along everyone's feedback to the team. Let us know what you liked, didn't like, and think could be improved upon in future seasons.”

Stay tuned for more information on Season of Dawn as we get closer to its December 10 release date.