Destiny 2 has long had three major playlist activities. Vanguard Operations are the game’s repeatable PVE missions. Crucible contains the game’s PVP modes, which have issues but a dedicated playerbase. Gambit, the third, was added early on in the game’s lifespan and is a kind of PVEVP mode where players race to defeat enemies and bank motes before the opposing team. However, despite several attempts to make Gambit more interesting and essential to the Destiny 2 experience, it’s never quite caught on. At this point, Gambit is more or less dead.
Admit it — you probably only ever play Gambit to complete Seasonal Challenges or get Pinnacle drops. There haven’t been any major quests involving Gambit for years, and we’ve been stuck with the same few maps ever since Beyond Light, when the rest were vaulted. Yes, if you started playing Destiny 2 in the last couple of years, we previously had more Gambit maps than we do now.
The lack of variety in the game mode is compounded by the fact that Gambit just isn’t that much fun. Despite a few balance balances, the mode strongly favors Invading as a tactic. That could be fixed with a change or two, but it doesn’t seem like Bungie is interested in doing so. As it is, Gambit is the odd one out of Destiny 2‘s playlist activities. Despite the problems with alternative modes like Gambit Prime in the past, at least Bungie was trying to make more of the activity. These days, it seems like they’ve given up entirely.
So what’s the solution? Leaving the mode in as is feels pointless. Obviously, Bungie is prioritizing the PVE and PVP aspects of the game, which are hard enough to balance in isolation. Throwing the two play styles together as they did in Gambit seems to compound the issues with both. Short of massive overhauls to Gambit — maybe a season where the Drifter finally comes back and that “important decision” to side with him or the Vanguard years ago finally pays off — maybe Bungie should just vault the mode altogether. Would anyone complain, really?
If Gambit stays in Destiny 2, then returning the vaulted maps would be a good start to adding more variety to the mode. It’s been long enough since they left the game that many players have likely never even seen them, anyway. Another possibility would be adding in some of the new surge and threat modifiers to spice things up. Seriously, just change anything or dump Gambit entirely. Our gross basement uncle deserves better.
