Destiny’s decade long Saga of Light and Darkness may be over, but Destiny 2 is far from finished telling its story. In the power vacuum created by the Witness’s death, many familiar enemies have started scheming and plotting once again - including the Witch Queen herself, Savathuun. With this week’s launch of Episode: Echoes, a new secret mission called Dual Destiny has appeared within the Traveler’s Pale Heart. Savathuun invites two guardians to combine the powers of light and darkness to complete a co-op mission and earn a fantastic reward: Destiny 2’s first-ever exotic class item.

Dual Destiny is a secret exotic mission similar to missions like The Whisper and Zero Hour, but with a co-op twist. It borrows mechanics you’d typically only find in a raid - like The Witch Queen’s Vow of the Disciple - to create an encounter that blends combat and puzzle-solving in ways we’ve never seen in a mission like this. I was blown away by the creativity on display in Dual Destiny, which is already considered by many to be the best secret mission Destiny 2 has ever had. The fact that it’s tied to such a coveted reward makes it that much more satisfying to conquer. It’s a phenomenal experience attached to a flawless expansion, so naturally, there’s a very vocal group of whiny complainers who are bitter about it.

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Whenever I tackle controversies, I try my best to present the position I’m criticizing in the fairest light possible. In this case, it’s nearly impossible to find a valid point here. For the past two days, social media and the Destiny subreddits have been inundated with players upset that Dual Destiny can’t be played solo. Self-identifying ‘solo players’ think it’s unfair for Bungie to lock such a coveted reward behind a multiplayer activity that requires you to communicate with another person. Some are demanding that Bungie remove the requirement to complete the mission to unlock the item and provide an alternative, solo-friendly way to acquire it.

I don’t have a lot of sympathy for these players. Dual Destiny is incredible specifically because it’s a cooperative mission, and anyone unwilling to do it is cheating themselves out of a special experience. I’ve seen a lot of people saying this mission excludes people, but I don’t think that’s true. Being a solo player is not a mechanism of Destiny, as you stop being a solo player the moment you participate in an activity with other people. If you don’t have friends to play with, that’s no problem - Destiny 2 has an in-game LFG (looking for group) that will help you find a partner for Dual Destiny.

If for some reason you can’t speak or just don’t want strangers on the internet to hear your voice (a totally valid preference), you can communicate through text using the in-game chat feature instead. All of the tools to make this feasible are available to you. If you can play Destiny, you can play this 15-minute mission with another person.

I’m not even necessarily saying to get out there and make a new friend. There’s a few occasions throughout the dungeon where you need to tell your partner a symbol you’re looking at, and that’s pretty much the extent of the required communication. This can be as simple as typing a single word into the chat box several times. You don’t have to make small talk. You don’t have to share your deepest darkest secrets with a stranger. You have to be able to say or type the word ‘pyramid’. When people say they can’t play this mission, I don’t know what they mean.

I understand if someone just doesn’t want to do it, but the good news is that you don’t have to. There’s plenty of things I don’t do in Destiny because I don’t want to, and I just accept that I won’t get the reward for doing those things. I’ve never gone flawless in Trials. I’ve never completed a raid on Contest mode. I’m missing loads of titles because I didn’t dedicate the time to earning all the required Triumphs, and I’m missing the blueprints for at least half of the craftable weapons because I didn’t make an effort to farm them. I didn’t want to do those things, but I could have. If you don’t want to do Dual Destiny, that’s fine, but demanding Bungie move its reward to a different activity is outrageously entitled.

You don’t need the exotic armor piece to play Destiny, and in fact, if you’re someone who isn’t even willing to do a simple activity with another human, you probably have no use for it either. These exotics have powerful abilities that will be useful in higher difficulty activities like Grandmaster Nightfalls and raids, but if you’re someone that just wants to farm playlist activities, what the heck do you even need it for?

This is the kind of loud, negative feedback that developers ought to ignore. Dual Destiny is the coolest mission in The Final Shape so far - which is saying a lot given how great the expansion is - and it wouldn’t be so great if not for its unique co-op mechanics. If this was truly an accessibility issue I would expect Bungie to address it, but it’s not. If you won’t play Destiny with other people, then you’re just going to have to accept that there are parts of this massive online multiplayer game that just aren’t for you.

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