It's a long-running adage among Destiny fans that Bungie does its best work when its back is against the wall. That will be of little comfort to those laid off last October at the same time as The Final Shape expansion was delayed, but as I noted last month the studio does seem to have entered one of its 'we're so back' eras. 

The new Onslaught horde mode, and its Brave weapon loot, has brought grinders back in droves. The Pantheon boss rush event is also proving popular, with raid virgins popping their cherries and hardcore teams targeting the hardest version for bragging rights. Hell, we even got new PvP maps this week!

All those additions were aimed squarely at keeping the existing player base occupied in the run up to the release of The Final Shape, which closes out the 10-year-long story arc Destiny is on, on June 3. Today, Bungie revealed how it's going to tempt back long-lapsed and completely new players to the Saga: By making all but one of the current expansions free from now until The Final Shape launches. 

Those expansions are Shadowkeep, Beyond Light, and The Witch Queen, each of which includes its own full campaign and raid. Note that Beyond Light also grants players access to Stasis, a frost-flavoured subclass for your guardian to wield. Somewhat irritatingly, PlayStation Plus members also get access to the Lightfall expansion, which we didn't love, but comes with the Strand subclass (think Spider-Man only glowing green ropes). Regardless, free is free, and you'll be able to keep whatever gear you acquire and exotics you unlock during this period.

Sweetening the pot further, Bungie is making a large chunk of seasonal content free too: "In addition to the expansions, all Seasonal content from Destiny Year 6 is available to all players through June 3, which includes: Season of Defiance, Season of the Deep, Season of the Witch, and Season of the Wish." There's some banger stuff in those seasons, like the Deep Dive and The Coil activities, plus the Avalon and Starcrossed exotic missions. 

With massive pressure on The Final Shape to deliver, Bungie is clearly doing everything it can to remove friction for anyone thinking of checking out the game as it approaches the big climax. Whether it can stick the landing we'll have to see, but as an inveterate player since day one I'm glad to see the ship at least heading in the right direction again. We'll have more to talk about on that front soon.

A Helldivers 2 community manager claims they have been fired after encouraging negative Steam reviews in response to Sony's newly rescinded decision to mandate PlayStation Network account linking.

After it was announced last week that Helldivers 2 players on PC would be forced to link their PSN accounts to continue playing the game, an absolute tsunami of backlash hit both Sony and Arrowhead. As the din of protest continued to swell, community manager Spitz began to actively encourage players to make their voices heard, as it would give Arrowhead "more pull in discussions with Sony" to have the decision reversed. Well, more than 200,000 negative reviews were posted to Helldivers 2's Steam page shortly after Sony announced the change, and ultimately the decision was reversed, but not without a key casualty.

Over on the official Helldivers 2 Discord channel, Spitz revealed they're no longer an Arrowhead community manager, nor are they working for the studio at all. They also made clear this "was not" a voluntary exit.

"Generally it's not a good idea to tell people to refund and leave negative reviews when you're a community manager. TIL," Spitz said. "I appreciate all the support and I appreciate even more that everyone can play the game again without restrictions. I knew I was taking a risk with what I said about refunding and changing reviews. I stand by it. It was my job to represent the community, that's what I did."

They added: "I wanted to work for Arrowhead because they're my all-time favorite studio. I got that chance. I'm thankful for that opportunity. I'd happily continue working for them if I had the choice, but that isn't up to me or anyone else in here. I can walk away happy and I don't want anyone causing trouble on my behalf, especially not to people I still have a lot of care and respect for."

Without knowing the full situation (I've reached out to Arrowhead for comment), it's hard to say exactly what went into Spitz's apparent firing, but if it was solely based on his encouraging players to leave bad reviews, I think it's safe to say they went down fighting the good fight.

Meanwhile, Helldivers 2 grunts want the PSN drama immortalized as an in-game cape, and the devs are already working on "a good name for it".