For many years now, the Ghosts of Destiny 2 guardians have remained an afterthought on the player’s journey. Sure, Ghosts are still actively visually customized and can look cool in cutscenes because of that, but that’s all that stands out. The rest of the Ghost’s gameplay experience revolves around the very passive Ghost-exclusive mods, and that seems like a wasted opportunity. Let’s dive into how updating Ghost’s mods could improve Destiny 2.
The current Ghost mods in a vacuum are okay, far from bad really, but seem underdeveloped if those represent the only thing that Ghosts can do for the player. I mean, for crying out loud, the Ghosts are light-based constructs born from the Traveler itself. Considering how powerful the Traveler is, it doesn’t make sense to me for the Ghost to be what it currently is for players.
It may surprise you that Ghosts are capable of much more in Destiny 2’s lore. In the lore book, A Ghost with “No Name”, a Ghost is able to completely sync itself and control its Exo guardian through the use of a special microchip. No Name then goes on to use its own guardian’s Void super for him as No Name has a deeper understanding of the Light than its guardian does. There’s another snippet of Destiny 2 lore that describes a Ghost picking something up using a lasso made of light. These entries and others certainly show more of what Ghosts are capable of. It’s definitely something Bungie should take and turn into a new element of gameplay and customization.
The Ghost’s current mods could effectively be their own category, maybe called Recon. From there, a Ghost mod overhaul could include a few more categories. Let’s call the first of these new hypothetical categories, Assault. Assault could be a series of mods that focus on allowing Ghosts to attack on a cooldown selected from the Ghost summoning screen.
Meanwhile, Assault would empower Ghosts to blast nearby enemies with a smaller modified version of the Traveler’s light beam used on the Witness. Additionally, alternate mods could let the Ghost pick up a small enemy and fling it into others or provide an AoE debuff that increases damage taken or slows. Ultimately, the Ghost’s attacks could and should also synergize with the Guardian’s build via subclass, armor mods, exotics, etc.
Now, the next category could be referred to as Support, and focus more on heals and buffs to the player. These might range from moderate self-heals on a medium cooldown to wide AoE heals on a long cooldown. Furthermore, buffs could enhance anything from a Guardian’s damage to their speed, or even their defenses. For the sake of the sandbox, it’s important to think of these potential new Ghost abilities as long-cooldown mini supers that are helpful but not nearly as strong as a Guardian’s.
Finally, the last category of mods could be one that focuses on summoning simple and temporary light-based constructs that act on their own. These constructs could be humanoid beings of light that attack from a distance or in melee range. Other summonable constructs could encompass a range of non-sentient structures like a Titan-esque shield to hide behind, or the Ghost’s version of a grenade it can throw made of explosive light.
It’s exciting speculation like this that plays to the strengths of Destiny 2‘s world, gameplay design, and sandbox. Bungie could easily implement something like this that would only enrich the game. It wouldn’t be unreasonable to think that players would enjoy having yet another element that could play into deeper build diversity amidst their many loadouts. Like with Bungie putting LFG straight into the game at players’ request, if players want a Ghost 3.0, Bungie will likely make it happen. Whether or not these Ghost abilities would work in the Crucible would be up for debate by Bungie themselves, but they would be quite fun in PvE at least.
Lately, other live-service games like Elder Scrolls Online and Final Fantasy 14 have made sweeping changes that allow more players to experience more of the game solo. Bungie, too, has seemingly been striving for something similar, especially with the aforementioned LFG implementation. A Ghost 3.0 overhaul could be seen as the same kind of move, increasing a solo player’s potential options for damage and survivability. This could be a good look for Bungie, showing that Destiny 2 is even more player-friendly than before. Playing by yourself? Your Ghost has your back. Want to play with friends but don’t have any? Use the new in-game LFG!
