The first thing Bungie asked LucasFilm about its Star Wars-themed Destiny 2 expansion was: 'What is the bad version of this?'

You know the emergency lights are blinking at Bungie when the developer starts putting out balance changes with triple digit percent buffs in a bid to lure Destiny 2's dwindling playerbase back. That was the case with yesterday's ability tuning blog, which saw the Hunter class eating especially well. (About time too.) Today, attention turned to next week's Renegades launch, in the form of a live stream breaking down what to expect from the Star Wars-themed expansion.

Although I wrote previously that I had no interest in cosplaying as Darth Vader, I have warmed up to the idea of injecting some Star Wars flavour in the form of blaster weapons, some quasi-Jedi on Sith beef, and of course an ersatz lightsaber. Still, there are plenty in what remains of the community with doubts about the wisdom of smushing two sci-fi franchises together. I found it reassuring to hear the game's narrative director Alison Lührs admit that the first thing the Bungie team asked when they sat down with LucasFilm in San Francisco was: 'What's the bad version of this?'"

I guess it made sense to get the image of Jar Jar Binks hurling a Nova Bomb out of the way early. Lührs stopped short of detailing what the nightmare scenario looked like, but the point was made that Renegades couldn't "feel like a one-off or a side quest", meaning it needs to fit cleanly into the overarching narrative that began with The Edge of Fate.

To that end, Bungie went for a "scoundrel fantasy" in which the Guardian, under the direction of The Drifter (Destiny's resident moral grey zone), pulls together a ragtag team doing jobs for various criminal syndicates. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about Vex wearing trenchcoats, but what am I going to do—quit after 10k+ hours? I don't think so.

These jobs take the form of the new Lawless Frontier activity, which sees fireteams of three tackling Smuggling, Bounty Hunt and Sabotage missions. There are three maps to play on—Europa, Mars, and Venus—chosen for their similarity to Star Wars locations. Intriguingly, you can play with 'invasions' on or off, depending on whether you want to face a potential one-time attack from an enemy guardian.

You'll also be able to unlock new Renegades abilities, which replace your grenade and melee ability, and will be useable in both the campaign missions and the Lawless Frontier mode. In the same way the Matterspark was only available during Kepler content in Edge of Fate (or if you were cheating in PvP), you won't be able to take these into older content like Raids. They will however be upgradeable through three levels.

Adding expansion-specific abilities feels a bit like taking the 'borrowed power' idea from other live service games like Diablo, but I do wonder whether time would be better spent on permanent additions like new aspects and fragments for the existing classes which will remain valuable into future content.

The end goal of the campaign will be toppling a new Cabal faction called the Barant Empire, whose stand-ins for Sith Lords are an evil duo called Dredgen Bael and Premier Lume. On the side of the Light is Aunor, a Praxic Warlock that has previously appeared in the story as some kind of detective, but is now a Jedi in all but name. Which brings us to lightsabers. Sorry, I mean Praxic Swords.

Destiny has had swords in the past, but the Praxic Sword is the first that goes in the kinetic slot. It'll be found as a reward from a questline with Aunor, which I fully expect to involve the new Equilibrium dungeon (trailer below). The Praxic Blade can reflect incoming fire, be thrown at enemies, and we're told will be customisable in multiple ways., including adding subclass verbs like Weaken, Jolt, Scorch and Sever.

Following a phone call last week, Bungie told me: "It is not a traditional craftable weapon—you won't have to go to Mars to create it. Instead, all customization can be tuned on the weapon inspection screen." That customisation won't just involve the color of the blade and its crystal, but also actual functionality.

Other exotics confirmed for Renegade include:

• Heirloom: Solar special ammo crossbow based on Chewbacca's signature weapon.
• Deimosuffusion: Warlock helmet that enables your Strand suspend effects to cause damage over time and heal the user.
• Fortune's Favor: Hunter boots that grant an overshield on kills while at full health, and grant additional benefits whilst any overshield is active.
• Praxic Vestment: Titan chestpiece that grants rocket jumps that end with a knee slam and may finally salve the loss of beloved movement exotic Twilight Garrisson.
• Service of Luzaku: Strand machinegun that turns damaged enemies into 'nests of threadlings'.

And hey, as we've established I'm not going anywhere, so will no doubt enjoy messing around with all of those. But what was notably—and frankly understandably—absent from the stream was much big picture discussion about the malaise the game currently finds itself in.

Earlier this month, Bungie acknowledged that the sweeping systemic changes that came with The Edge of Fate were "the wrong path for Destiny". Back in September, we said as much too, with Phil calling out the Portal (which groups activities into an anemic and unlovable hub) as "a complete failure".

Bungie's response to that rolling disaster has been to make a series of quality of life improvements, bug fixes, and loot buffs. It's been a painful slog, though, and I think we're still far from a place in which there's any real positive sentiment towards the current system.

So the real question is going to be whether the studio sticks with its big design swing, or moves towards ripping the whole thing out. The reason that question won't be answered by Renegades, which launches on Tuesday 2 December, is simply that the expansion came too soon to take meaningful account of all the vituperative feedback.

Until Bungie's long-term response to the self-inflicted wound of The Edge of Fate becomes clear—and we're unlikely to receive the much-requested roadmap until early 2026—then the best Renegades can hope for is to be a pleasant holiday in someone else's star system.